SafeDollar ‘stablecoin’ drops to $0 following DeFi exploit on Polygon(cryptoslate.com)
cryptoslate.com
SafeDollar ‘stablecoin’ drops to $0 following DeFi exploit on Polygon
https://cryptoslate.com/safedollar-stablecoin-drops-to-0-following-248000-defi-exploit-on-polygon/
576 comments
I've seen them described as "self-funding bug bounties".
But it's so much worse than that, right? Bugs in a smart contract are immutable. Those are just the terms everyone agreed to. There's simply no path to deploying a fix that every good actor agrees is beneficial.
It's fairly common to deploy a proxy contract, which allows for a sort of updating. Basically you deploy a new contract and have the proxy point to that new contract instead of the old one. There are definitely some limitations and it's not fully standardized yet. There's a tentative standard here https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/1538 and OpenZeppelin also has their own implementation.
Although neither of these things will actually help if your contract gets exploited before you can push a fix.
Although neither of these things will actually help if your contract gets exploited before you can push a fix.
The problem there is that it allows people with deploy privileges to unilaterally change the rules. So you lose "code is law". Hypothetically, you want to custody of assets in an immutable contract with the minimal amount of privileges, and use proxy contracts for higher level on-chain functionality. But it's not so clear to me that it's possible to achieve a perfect factoring, in general.
Typically folks require a governance vote (so multiple parties) + a timelocked contract, and then after some system age / volume they burn the option.
Doesn't a proxy contract defeat the whole purpose of algorithmically enforced contracts?
I don't think it's realistic to think that human judgment can leave the picture after the first deploy. New systems are fragile, requirements change, and mistakes happen. A certain level of trust is required in the founders of a project. And generally, they have long-term incentives that are aligned with your own.
So it implies the crypto maximalist takes on true trustlessness are not proving workable. At least in practice with lots of real users.
The systems can be trustless and upgradable.
As we get proven/tested/formally verified code that implements governance protocols we can use that code to build system of allowing upgrades while allowing those who disagree to exit the system.
For example, one of the ZKRollup chains has a mechanism for upgrading that requires a small number of approvers for the “break glass” scenario. When an upgrade is approved, anyone can exit the network before the upgrade takes affect and move to a system with rules they support.
Governance models will evolve as we figure out what works and what doesn’t. Some people may be ok with a super majority being able to revert the state of a contract in response to a bug while others will want immutability at all costs.
Blockchain/cryptocurrency is about each participant deciding how much trust they are ok with, and having an open ecosystem where assets can be moved to systems that people want to use.
As we get proven/tested/formally verified code that implements governance protocols we can use that code to build system of allowing upgrades while allowing those who disagree to exit the system.
For example, one of the ZKRollup chains has a mechanism for upgrading that requires a small number of approvers for the “break glass” scenario. When an upgrade is approved, anyone can exit the network before the upgrade takes affect and move to a system with rules they support.
Governance models will evolve as we figure out what works and what doesn’t. Some people may be ok with a super majority being able to revert the state of a contract in response to a bug while others will want immutability at all costs.
Blockchain/cryptocurrency is about each participant deciding how much trust they are ok with, and having an open ecosystem where assets can be moved to systems that people want to use.
Do you have any examples of these takes? The concept of "true trustlessness" is obviously lacking in nuance and probably impossible. Nothing in the world can exist without some form of trust. However, we can certainly use smart contracts to decentralize trust and limit risk exposure.
I guess technically you can deploy a new contract that reverses the previous contract outcomes then replays the « fixed » terms. Good luck to find a common agreement though. And so much more possibilities for new bugs.
When I think about it in those terms...
Why not fund bug bounties that way?
They are called ransomwares and people aren't very happy with that method.
And oddly ineffective at actually prompting action on closing out those bugs.
While I don't have numbers, there is indication that it's prompting increased investment into cyber security:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevindowd/2021/06/06/private-eq...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevindowd/2021/06/06/private-eq...
Because you presumably want to find bugs in applications that are not smart contracts.
Wait you don't have a /root/btc_bounty_private_key.txt with 600 permissions in every server?
No. I was specifically referring to finding bugs in smart contracts. Stand up a network and have a "bounty" that would attract attempts.
That is happening as well.
Because the payout would be too large
The payout would be whatever gas you put in as the "bounty"
lmao
Mostly it involves people making systems that are too complex to trivially analyze. You can not write arbitrarily complex secure code. You need to limit your scope and do one very simple thing extremely tersely and correctly.
You can make powerful systems with simple correct independent components. You can not make complex secure monolithic systems. It gets even worse when you look at contracts with delegation.
The problem with most "smart" contracts is they have abstractions, delegation and scope creep.
You can make powerful systems with simple correct independent components. You can not make complex secure monolithic systems. It gets even worse when you look at contracts with delegation.
The problem with most "smart" contracts is they have abstractions, delegation and scope creep.
I don't know much in the field, but formally verifiable programming methods come to mind.
You'll potentially have less of a chance for contracts to be exploited (at least compared to what we have now).
That said, you can't protect against infrastructure exploits as easily, mathematically flawless program or not.
You'll potentially have less of a chance for contracts to be exploited (at least compared to what we have now).
That said, you can't protect against infrastructure exploits as easily, mathematically flawless program or not.
Formal methods are about matching the spec. Errors in the spec are still an issue. Moreover, there is very, very little formally verified code in the world, much less than you'd believe.
My former professor (RIP) oversaw the formal verification of the F-16 computer software and it still had significant bugs in the end where the specification itself was incomplete or in error. And that was a multi-year, team-scale effort. No one is doing that for smart contracts.
My former professor (RIP) oversaw the formal verification of the F-16 computer software and it still had significant bugs in the end where the specification itself was incomplete or in error. And that was a multi-year, team-scale effort. No one is doing that for smart contracts.
A nice practical example from TLS 1.3:
TLS 1.3 has been formally proven (not an implementation, but the standard itself). To the extent the mathematicians correctly explained what the TLS 1.3 RFC says, and correctly told the machine what TLS 1.3 is supposed to do, the machine proof says this protocol does what we intended.
That work assumes a bunch of components are black boxes, they must work. If we ever lose confidence that they work, we've got to throw those out. So for example SHA-256, AES GCM, X25519, the proof doesn't say "We prove these work" it says "Assuming you're right that these do what they're designed to do the rest of your proof holds"
Anyway, one of the assumptions in that proof is a surprise to a human implementing TLS 1.3, it isn't explicitly mentioned in the TLS 1.3 document as written. And so the result is, if you didn't obey that assumption, the proof doesn't hold and sure enough you're vulnerable to an attack.
The assumption is for Pre-shared Keys (e.g. IoT devices A and B don't want to bother with certificates, so they just use pre-agreed random keys) each device pairing has its own PSK.
A person looking at the design figures hey, got two devices Alice and Bob, I can just have a single key K known to both devices, and everything is secure. But that's wrong - and the TLS 1.3 proof doesn't say this will work. Here's what bad guys can do, it's called the Selfie Attack:
Alice sends a message to Bob, maybe "Did you feed the cat?" and it's encrypted with key K. Normally Bob receives the message, maybe answers "Yes I fed the cat" also encrypted with key K and all is well.
But now Mallory is on a network able to intercept and re-route messages. Alice sends to Bob, "Did you feed the cat?" encrypted with key K. Mallory can't read or tamper with this message, it's encrypted with key K and TLS 1.3 works as designed, but Mallory just re-directs the message back to Alice, "Did you feed the cat?". The message is encrypted with key K, Alice assumes Bob sent it, and replies "No, I didn't feed the cat" also encrypted with key K, which Mallory re-directs again back to Alice, who now mistakenly believes that Bob has told her he hasn't fed the cat.
There are obviously a bunch of things you could do to fix this. First of all you could just have more PSKs. If Alice's message to Bob is always encrypted using the Alice->Bob shared key, when Alice actually receives it instead she knows something is wrong immediately. Or you could just prefix each message with To/From information, like an old-fashioned email and that works too so long as you check it.
But the important observation is that this is an assumption in a proof that nobody really surfaced until it was too late. If researchers had told the proof system "No, the PSKs can be the same" the proof fails. Or if they'd carefully explained to the TLS Working Group, "We had to spell out that the PSKs must be different" then today RFC 8446 would likely explain that you need to do that or you've got a security problem. But neither happened and this attack slipped between the cracks.
TLS 1.3 has been formally proven (not an implementation, but the standard itself). To the extent the mathematicians correctly explained what the TLS 1.3 RFC says, and correctly told the machine what TLS 1.3 is supposed to do, the machine proof says this protocol does what we intended.
That work assumes a bunch of components are black boxes, they must work. If we ever lose confidence that they work, we've got to throw those out. So for example SHA-256, AES GCM, X25519, the proof doesn't say "We prove these work" it says "Assuming you're right that these do what they're designed to do the rest of your proof holds"
Anyway, one of the assumptions in that proof is a surprise to a human implementing TLS 1.3, it isn't explicitly mentioned in the TLS 1.3 document as written. And so the result is, if you didn't obey that assumption, the proof doesn't hold and sure enough you're vulnerable to an attack.
The assumption is for Pre-shared Keys (e.g. IoT devices A and B don't want to bother with certificates, so they just use pre-agreed random keys) each device pairing has its own PSK.
A person looking at the design figures hey, got two devices Alice and Bob, I can just have a single key K known to both devices, and everything is secure. But that's wrong - and the TLS 1.3 proof doesn't say this will work. Here's what bad guys can do, it's called the Selfie Attack:
Alice sends a message to Bob, maybe "Did you feed the cat?" and it's encrypted with key K. Normally Bob receives the message, maybe answers "Yes I fed the cat" also encrypted with key K and all is well.
But now Mallory is on a network able to intercept and re-route messages. Alice sends to Bob, "Did you feed the cat?" encrypted with key K. Mallory can't read or tamper with this message, it's encrypted with key K and TLS 1.3 works as designed, but Mallory just re-directs the message back to Alice, "Did you feed the cat?". The message is encrypted with key K, Alice assumes Bob sent it, and replies "No, I didn't feed the cat" also encrypted with key K, which Mallory re-directs again back to Alice, who now mistakenly believes that Bob has told her he hasn't fed the cat.
There are obviously a bunch of things you could do to fix this. First of all you could just have more PSKs. If Alice's message to Bob is always encrypted using the Alice->Bob shared key, when Alice actually receives it instead she knows something is wrong immediately. Or you could just prefix each message with To/From information, like an old-fashioned email and that works too so long as you check it.
But the important observation is that this is an assumption in a proof that nobody really surfaced until it was too late. If researchers had told the proof system "No, the PSKs can be the same" the proof fails. Or if they'd carefully explained to the TLS Working Group, "We had to spell out that the PSKs must be different" then today RFC 8446 would likely explain that you need to do that or you've got a security problem. But neither happened and this attack slipped between the cracks.
Keep in mind:
1. a non-verified approach can have many problems in the (informal) specification + implementation errors
2. the verified approach is likely to have less specification errors (because the specification had to be formally written out and matched against an implementation) and implementation errors with respect to the specification will be almost impossible (minus faults in the compiler, OS and hardware).
There's a huge jump in security guarantees between 1 and 2.
1. a non-verified approach can have many problems in the (informal) specification + implementation errors
2. the verified approach is likely to have less specification errors (because the specification had to be formally written out and matched against an implementation) and implementation errors with respect to the specification will be almost impossible (minus faults in the compiler, OS and hardware).
There's a huge jump in security guarantees between 1 and 2.
A very interesting and informative comment - thank you.
I'm not familiar with formal verification, so forgive me. Could something like TLA+ be used to inch yourself towards a verifiable spec? Although you are moving the goalpost, the hope is that eventually your spec is so simple that it is "obvious" that it is correct?
MakerDAO is formally verified.
https://medium.com/@MakerDAO/the-code-is-ready-2aee2aa62e73
https://medium.com/@MakerDAO/the-code-is-ready-2aee2aa62e73
Yes, I agree. Most of the security of smart contracts should be in the VM. Things like self-asserting the results and only finishing the transaction if it actually passes a double-check. Or set value limits to each smart-contract (so even if there's a bug it will only operate on 0.00001 BTC for example).
If your smart contract can only process tiny amounts of money, then it's no useful.
That's not what I'm saying. But sure, if you think you can write smart contracts without bugs for all means don't set a limit.
I'm saying you should define a ceiling for your smart contract so in case of a bug, no transactions over that ceiling go forward.
So if you have a stupid bug that causes you to transfer 1BTC instead of 0.001BTC you don't lose all your money.
I'm saying you should define a ceiling for your smart contract so in case of a bug, no transactions over that ceiling go forward.
So if you have a stupid bug that causes you to transfer 1BTC instead of 0.001BTC you don't lose all your money.
What's the distinction? That just means you won't be able to use smart contracts for anything useful.
This is mostly infeasible because the VM has no idea what's worth anything. There is no reasonable price in absolute terms for a BTC or ETH or DOGE or $DUMBCOIN.
The key is that the contracts need to be minimal and analyzable, so its ~100 lines of code you can manually analyze. Documented separately all the edge cases, or ideally removed through good design so they simply don't exist. A bunch of problems I've seen in the real world of crypto are annoying edge cases that you can fix with an if statement, or ideally change the design to remove them completely. It's actually a surprisingly hard space because you're trying to make terse, complete and secure code.
In normal web/systems programming you have layers of security; internal services, external services, firewalls, access controls, vpns, security by obscurity, etc etc etc. In crypto you have none of that. Everything is 100% public, the code probably should be published, or else it is trivially decompiled. If there is a problem someone will find it if there is value in finding it.
The key is that the contracts need to be minimal and analyzable, so its ~100 lines of code you can manually analyze. Documented separately all the edge cases, or ideally removed through good design so they simply don't exist. A bunch of problems I've seen in the real world of crypto are annoying edge cases that you can fix with an if statement, or ideally change the design to remove them completely. It's actually a surprisingly hard space because you're trying to make terse, complete and secure code.
In normal web/systems programming you have layers of security; internal services, external services, firewalls, access controls, vpns, security by obscurity, etc etc etc. In crypto you have none of that. Everything is 100% public, the code probably should be published, or else it is trivially decompiled. If there is a problem someone will find it if there is value in finding it.
Thanks for your comment. Yes I agree the absolute value in some coin is not a great metric.
> In normal web/systems programming you have layers of security; In crypto you have none of that.
Yes, that's what I mean. Why not?
> The key is that the contracts need to be minimal and analyzable
Agree, but even short contracts might have bugs. Betting on "self-paying bug bounts" is not a good bet.
What I'm proposing is that every smart contract double-checks its expected results
> In normal web/systems programming you have layers of security; In crypto you have none of that.
Yes, that's what I mean. Why not?
> The key is that the contracts need to be minimal and analyzable
Agree, but even short contracts might have bugs. Betting on "self-paying bug bounts" is not a good bet.
What I'm proposing is that every smart contract double-checks its expected results
The flip side of that is any smart contract that stood the test of time should be rock solid. For example, there are huge incentives to go ahead and hack a big contract like maker, compound, uniswap or aave, so you can bet that there's highly qualified people out there trying to hack them as we speak, yet after all this time, they are still working as intended.
I have a lot more trust in that kind of product than in a product where contracts are subject to interpretations by humans which may or may not be reliable. It's one of the reasons why people incorporate their companies in Delaware, there are well known case law, so you know in advance what to expect from the justice system. Predictability is an important part of a contract, I trust a well inspected and battle tested smart contract much more than a human enforced contract. That said, not everything is suited to smart contracts, but many financial applications are.
I have a lot more trust in that kind of product than in a product where contracts are subject to interpretations by humans which may or may not be reliable. It's one of the reasons why people incorporate their companies in Delaware, there are well known case law, so you know in advance what to expect from the justice system. Predictability is an important part of a contract, I trust a well inspected and battle tested smart contract much more than a human enforced contract. That said, not everything is suited to smart contracts, but many financial applications are.
Considering there are still new bugs found in chip designs, operating systems, and compilers that have been around 4 times as long as any cryptocurrency I have literally no idea why you would feel safe in “smart contracts.” At least if my bank account is hacked, I have a solid legal standing for compensation and I have good reason to believe centralized financial institutions will keep extensive documentation and logs. With decentralized finance, all I have is some Medium dot com post on the “Forward Plan” and an ominous message that “SAFEDOLLAR IS UNDER ATTACK.”
The bugs found in smart contracts equal large sums of money right away unlike 0-days in OSes or other systems where the link is much more indirect. For example, if you find a 0-day on Windows, sure you might sell it for 7-8 figures on the black market, if you found a bug on maker (or any of the big contracts), you could walk away with billions of dollars in a practically untraceable way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_for_zero-day_exploits#M...
The wikipedia entry on this is a bit misleading or misinformed. As there are multiple above ground buyers for 0-days that have no interest in making it difficult for people to sell to them.
There's still a middle-man to deal with in that process. In this case, you extract a decent amount of 'money' directly.
Would you rather win $100 and have to make a phone call to claim it, or find a $100 bill on the street?
Would you rather win $100 and have to make a phone call to claim it, or find a $100 bill on the street?
> Considering there are still new bugs found in chip designs, operating systems, and compilers that have been around 4 times as long
Not quite the same. Those codebases are much larger, often include legacy spaghetti code, or are closed source. This makes it more difficult to find exploits, not to mention there's not as clear of path of financial incentive.
Not quite the same. Those codebases are much larger, often include legacy spaghetti code, or are closed source. This makes it more difficult to find exploits, not to mention there's not as clear of path of financial incentive.
As someone that has experience in compilers and smart contracts, I can tell you they are an order of magnitude or more apart in terms of difficulty. Most smart contracts are not that complicated.
I'm not sure this follows.
It's a fair point that any easy-to-find bugs in large, time-tested contracts will have been found. Any medium- or hard-to-find bugs also will probably have been found. But there might still be a very-hard-to-find bug lurking; and given the value of finding such a bug, people might look hard enough to find it.
In other words, the same scale that ensures there is no low-hanging fruit, also provides the incentive to pick high-hanging fruit.
> I have a lot more trust in that kind of product than in a product where contracts are subject to interpretations by humans which may or may not be reliable.
This is a valid concern, but it's also extremely well-understood at this point; we have centuries of global-scale experience with traditional financial and legal systems. They're certainly not flawless, but it's rare for gigantic new flaws to emerge. An important point is the existence of mechanisms for rolling back bad transactions and challenging / appealing flawed decisions.
It's a fair point that any easy-to-find bugs in large, time-tested contracts will have been found. Any medium- or hard-to-find bugs also will probably have been found. But there might still be a very-hard-to-find bug lurking; and given the value of finding such a bug, people might look hard enough to find it.
In other words, the same scale that ensures there is no low-hanging fruit, also provides the incentive to pick high-hanging fruit.
> I have a lot more trust in that kind of product than in a product where contracts are subject to interpretations by humans which may or may not be reliable.
This is a valid concern, but it's also extremely well-understood at this point; we have centuries of global-scale experience with traditional financial and legal systems. They're certainly not flawless, but it's rare for gigantic new flaws to emerge. An important point is the existence of mechanisms for rolling back bad transactions and challenging / appealing flawed decisions.
> it's rare for gigantic new flaws to emerge
There are countless instances of rouge traders, high level financial crime and corruption.
Wirecard is one recent example costing billions. The Libor scandal another that comes to mind.
There are countless instances of rouge traders, high level financial crime and corruption.
Wirecard is one recent example costing billions. The Libor scandal another that comes to mind.
Who were the victims with wirecard?
They faked the numbers, but they didn't manage people's money.
They faked the numbers, but they didn't manage people's money.
I can't tell if you're sarcastic or not. In case you're serious, you don't see how a company with a market cap of 28B$ going belly up causes damage to investors, the markets, their partners, clients and employees?
The stock going belly up is the consequence of the fraud, but not the actual fraud. Just like the other people you've mentioned.
Eg. Their clients switched payment processor.
When a btc exchange frauds or a coin hacked or a smart contract is bugged, they get away with all your money. Which is the actual fraud.
In some cases they post a postmortem on medium and call it a day.
I don't think wirecard's fraud is comparable with all the crap in crypto town.
Eg. Their clients switched payment processor.
When a btc exchange frauds or a coin hacked or a smart contract is bugged, they get away with all your money. Which is the actual fraud.
In some cases they post a postmortem on medium and call it a day.
I don't think wirecard's fraud is comparable with all the crap in crypto town.
How many major bugs in software and especially cryptosystems went undisclosed for decades?
The core issue is the inherent asymmetry where 1 person finding 1 bug can destabilize giant systems. Even if these systems where hundreds of years old that doesn’t actually mean much.
The core issue is the inherent asymmetry where 1 person finding 1 bug can destabilize giant systems. Even if these systems where hundreds of years old that doesn’t actually mean much.
How many bugs had a direct financial return in the same way? If you found a bug in maker (or any of the other big contracts) today, you can walk away with billions of dollars worth of coins, that's a huge sum.
Major bugs in smart contracts can cause the system to stop working rather than handing anyone billions. As such people can discover such issues without disclosing them in much the way infrastructure can be vulnerable without people damaging it.
The Parity wallet bug from 2017 is the classic example so far, where someone who was just messing around with the smart contract 'accidentally' locked up $280m in assets[1]. I've linked to the GitHub thread below...this person didn't get anything from the exploit, and it wasn't for street cred (they deleted their account).
https://github.com/openethereum/parity-ethereum/issues/6995#...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/08/accidental-bug-may-have-froz...
https://github.com/openethereum/parity-ethereum/issues/6995#...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/08/accidental-bug-may-have-froz...
Even being able to grind a smart contract to a halt would be very profitable if you shorted it right beforehand.
Even then you are limited things to people who are willing to break the law and have a giant sign pointing them as a likely culprit.
I mean people short crypto all the time, averaged over a long enough period of time long/short ratios are roughly ~50/50 [1]. It's normal market behavior. And if you're shorting one of the big ones, you can most likely do it on defi without even providing a name.
1: https://www.bybt.com/LongShortRatio
1: https://www.bybt.com/LongShortRatio
Let’s assume something like 100 people have very large* short positions on a system that goes down. Dropping the possibility from X,000,000,000 to 100 is quite a big deal.
*very large being required for significant money to be at stake, making say 10k illegally from a short is hardly going to inspire a lot of effort.
*very large being required for significant money to be at stake, making say 10k illegally from a short is hardly going to inspire a lot of effort.
Yeah, the classic example is the original binary search algorithm. It had an overflow bug that went undetected for two decades: https://thebittheories.com/the-curious-case-of-binary-search...
It's an incredibly simple algorithm and still got missed. Smart contracts have no chance.
It's an incredibly simple algorithm and still got missed. Smart contracts have no chance.
How often was that bug actually hit in production? How many people are allocating arrays of size 2*31? A bug is less likely to be caught if it's not exploitable.
By this logic most e-commerce is a mistake as well, since a serious flaw in the linux kernel could take down most web servers.
Nah, that's governed by contracts, law and enforced by the police. That money tends to be traceable and recoverable.
Credit card transactions are reversible, that means such flaws can be considered a cost of doing business rather than permanently destroying anything.
With ecommerce the worst you can do as a seller is take out as much money as the credit limit on the card. Which for most people is in the low thousands.
With smart contracts the liability upside is orders of magnitude higher.
With smart contracts the liability upside is orders of magnitude higher.
This sounds like a fallacy of the inverse. Those contracts not being hacked yet is no proof that they are resistant to hacks.
It's not clear what fallacy you're thinking about because the fallacy of the inverse is not it.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusion_of_the_inverse:
> Confusion of the inverse, also called the conditional probability fallacy or the inverse fallacy, is a logical fallacy whereupon a conditional probability is equated with its inverse; that is, given two events A and B, the probability of A happening given that B has happened is assumed to be about the same as the probability of B given A, when there is actually no evidence for this assumption.[1][2] More formally, P(A|B) is assumed to be approximately equal to P(B|A).
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusion_of_the_inverse:
> Confusion of the inverse, also called the conditional probability fallacy or the inverse fallacy, is a logical fallacy whereupon a conditional probability is equated with its inverse; that is, given two events A and B, the probability of A happening given that B has happened is assumed to be about the same as the probability of B given A, when there is actually no evidence for this assumption.[1][2] More formally, P(A|B) is assumed to be approximately equal to P(B|A).
The inverse of "any contract that has been hacked was insecure" is "any contract that hasn't been hacked must be secure".
I think this is what OP meant. If something has been around for a long time it does probably mean it's less likely there is a really obvious security flaw, but it doesn't necessarily mean it is 'rock-solid' as plenty of things that have been seen to be 'rock-solid' in the past have turned out to be insecure.
I think this is what OP meant. If something has been around for a long time it does probably mean it's less likely there is a really obvious security flaw, but it doesn't necessarily mean it is 'rock-solid' as plenty of things that have been seen to be 'rock-solid' in the past have turned out to be insecure.
yes this is what I was implying. I am curious how else the previous commenter would interpret my statement.
Let's formalize this to make it easier to discuss.
> The probability that a contract is hack-resistant, given that it has not been hacked, is approximately equal to the probability that it has not been hacked, given that it's hack resistant.
More succinctly:
Note that the first statement is a comparison of probabilities, and the second is not. They're not the same. There might be another fallacy at play here, but it's not the fallacy of the inverse.
𝐏(𝐀) = 𝐏(contract has been hacked)
𝐏(¬𝐀) = 𝐏(contract has not been hacked)
𝐏(𝐁) = 𝐏(contract is hack resistant)
𝐏(𝐁|¬𝐀) =
𝐏(contract is hack-resistant given that it has not been hacked)
𝐏(¬𝐀|𝐁) =
𝐏(contract has not been hacked given that it is hack-resistant)
> The probability that a contract is hack-resistant, given that it has not been hacked, is approximately equal to the probability that it has not been hacked, given that it's hack resistant.
More succinctly:
𝐏(𝐁|¬𝐀) ≅ 𝐏(¬𝐀|𝐁)
¬(¬𝐀 → 𝐁)
𝐏(𝐁|¬𝐀) ≅ 𝐏(¬𝐀|𝐁) => the fallacy of the inverse
and
¬(¬𝐀 → 𝐁) => statement in comment
Note that the first statement is a comparison of probabilities, and the second is not. They're not the same. There might be another fallacy at play here, but it's not the fallacy of the inverse.
To be honest, I don’t fully follow the above, and I’m not sure if this formalises the same problem. Copying the definition from Wikipedia:
> If P, then Q.
> Therefore, if not P, then not Q.
In this case, we could plug in the below values:
P = Contract Hacked Q = Insecure
I.e. if the contract has been hacked the code was insecure. Therefore if the contract has not been hacked, it is not insecure.
> If P, then Q.
> Therefore, if not P, then not Q.
In this case, we could plug in the below values:
P = Contract Hacked Q = Insecure
I.e. if the contract has been hacked the code was insecure. Therefore if the contract has not been hacked, it is not insecure.
It is pretty good evidence that they are resistant to hacks though, and speaking about interesting evidence that doesn't pass the bar of proof isn't some kind of logical fallacy. That's a pretty high bar to set for what you're willing to integrate information-wise about the world into your model of it.
I get where you are coming from but this is a highly adversarial environment where huge amounts of other people's money is at stake with a history of very clever hacks. This looks like precisely the sorts of systems where you ought to raise the bar as high as possible.
Certain systems may have proven themselves somewhat over time but for this I say there is always the possibility for some extremely sophisticated attack and for any other new system they by definition wont have even this proven track record.
Certain systems may have proven themselves somewhat over time but for this I say there is always the possibility for some extremely sophisticated attack and for any other new system they by definition wont have even this proven track record.
> The flip side of that is any smart contract that stood the test of time should be rock solid.
They all are until they aren't.
They all are until they aren't.
That's no guarantee. Someone might have a zero-day stashed away somewhere.
The game theory comes into play, if you found a bug that could empty maker's vaults for example, you better do it right now, otherwise, someone else will before you and you wasted all your time/energy.
Exactly. This is precisely why there aren't (or at least, in a rational world, should not be) any undisclosed zero-days in crypto. If you're aware of an exploit, you're just going to exploit it immediately unless you're willing to let someone else exploit it in your place.
There is a large amount of money at stake with these exploits and it doesn't make economic sense to let one sit around.
There is a large amount of money at stake with these exploits and it doesn't make economic sense to let one sit around.
I would trust things with formal proofs a lot more
Time for LawyerCoin (TM). The smart-contract is written in English (or other human language) and the oracles are powered by a bunch of lawyers who pinky swear to enforce them.
I'm doing ICO next week, if anyone wants in.
I'm doing ICO next week, if anyone wants in.
We can do better than pinky swearing. Each lawyer gets mining fees when they enforce a contract fairly. "Fairly" is defined by consensus, where each lawyer is forced to predict the consensus before voting in a private ballot that is only revealed when the rewards are issued. Lawyers who predict the consensus get rewarded. If you start it off with people who are trying to be fair then predicting fairness will lead to the most reward, and it will keep going until the majority defects.
The collective is incentivized to continue being fair because if they weren't, nobody would use their coin, and the rewards issued to fair lawyers would be worthless.
The collective is incentivized to continue being fair because if they weren't, nobody would use their coin, and the rewards issued to fair lawyers would be worthless.
That's actually a pretty good idea. I had a similar idea to discourage the gaming of upvotes on sites like HN and Reddit: make each upvote cost a point, but then you get a point for everyone who upvotes after you, divided by the number of votes the item had at the time you upvoted (or something like that). So people who upvote popular stories early, i.e. people who successfully predict what people will like, get rewarded.
Don't give me too much credit, I stole it straight from https://augur.net/ by swapping "truth" with "justice." ;) Fortunately for me the idea blockchain is irrevocable and my theft cannot be reversed.
But why would we want to encourage such groupthink and discourage dissent?
Taking up the OP's side because it's interesting...
Some kinds of groupthink are bad (like making an anti-vaccine subreddit that only ever shows articles about vaccine-related industrial accidents, instead of a vaccine subreddit that shows people a truly representative sampling of vaccine knowledge), but other kinds are arguably good (not seeing 4chan nasty stuff on /r/reallycutekittensandpuppies.) Only some group content coordination is filter bubbling, while other times it's filtering.
Some kinds of groupthink are bad (like making an anti-vaccine subreddit that only ever shows articles about vaccine-related industrial accidents, instead of a vaccine subreddit that shows people a truly representative sampling of vaccine knowledge), but other kinds are arguably good (not seeing 4chan nasty stuff on /r/reallycutekittensandpuppies.) Only some group content coordination is filter bubbling, while other times it's filtering.
Yeah, this. A lot of good stuff submitted to HN never gets noticed because there's not much incentive to go through new submissions. It's basically volunteer work, so you get volunteer-quality results. The caliber of volunteer in HN is higher than most sites, but a lot of good stuff still falls through the cracks (like most of the stuff I submit ;-)
This is good, but distributing the mining fees evenly across all lawyers will result in too low a fee for the work involved. What if, instead, the parties of the contract would each pick a small set of lawyers ("representing" lawyers) to receive their fees for enforcing the contract. Rather than relying solely on the mining lawyers for this contract to participate in consensus (as that number is now small and adversarially motivated), we would expand the consensus pool to all lawyers who participated in sufficiently similar contract enforcement in the past, using their votes on previous enforcements as an immutable record.
In this design, determining the threshold for similarity may require the participation of a third-party "oracle" or "judge" component.
In this design, determining the threshold for similarity may require the participation of a third-party "oracle" or "judge" component.
> Lawyers who predict the consensus get rewarded.
This is incentivizing what they think will be the most popular verdict vs what they think is the proper verdict. That's a very big difference and failures will be inevitable.
This is incentivizing what they think will be the most popular verdict vs what they think is the proper verdict. That's a very big difference and failures will be inevitable.
This, but unironically.
Did you just re-invent law from first principles? ;)
As long as you can pitch it as a new idea to SV, you'll be rolling in it!
That’s not even close to the main flaw. The main flaw is that it incentivizes crime, human trafficking and accelerates environmental destruction. None of these are huge problems if you can afford a private bunker in New Zealand. It’s a major problem for ordinary citizens, especially those of poorer countries.
Everything involving code has bugs. Bugs aren’t a reason not to use code. Bitcoin isn’t a problem for the very small fraction of the population that use it. Bitcoin users are super rich tech workers and finance guys, by and large.
The people hurt most by Bitcoin are all the people who don’t use it. It benefits the ultra-rich at great expense to the other 99% of humanity.
Everything involving code has bugs. Bugs aren’t a reason not to use code. Bitcoin isn’t a problem for the very small fraction of the population that use it. Bitcoin users are super rich tech workers and finance guys, by and large.
The people hurt most by Bitcoin are all the people who don’t use it. It benefits the ultra-rich at great expense to the other 99% of humanity.
From a humanitarian and economical point of view, Bitcoin doesn't hurt the poor. It allows the unbanked to finally store wealth, as a counter to a local strongly inflationary currency. Besides storing wealth, also growing wealth, as pretty much the only option they have.
Unless you don't believe the narrative that Bitcoin stores/grows wealth very well, in that case...poor people can simply not use it.
Perhaps you mean to say that the distribution of coins is uneven. That's true, but not a problem Bitcoin aims to solve or can solve. Bitcoin is fair, the same rules apply to everyone. If a billionaire has a 1,000 Bitcoin and I have 0.1 Bitcoin, we both win or lose based on price action equally, relatively speaking. That's as fair as it gets. With Bitcoin, having lots of coins doesn't give you any new free coins, unlike fiat money.
The environmental destruction is overstated and rapidly changing as we speak. Soon the vast majority of mining happens based on renewables with a specific focus on stranded energy. And this isn't a vague promise, some 60/70% of the hashrate from China, which include most coal-based mining, is being wiped out in just a few weeks.
Unless you don't believe the narrative that Bitcoin stores/grows wealth very well, in that case...poor people can simply not use it.
Perhaps you mean to say that the distribution of coins is uneven. That's true, but not a problem Bitcoin aims to solve or can solve. Bitcoin is fair, the same rules apply to everyone. If a billionaire has a 1,000 Bitcoin and I have 0.1 Bitcoin, we both win or lose based on price action equally, relatively speaking. That's as fair as it gets. With Bitcoin, having lots of coins doesn't give you any new free coins, unlike fiat money.
The environmental destruction is overstated and rapidly changing as we speak. Soon the vast majority of mining happens based on renewables with a specific focus on stranded energy. And this isn't a vague promise, some 60/70% of the hashrate from China, which include most coal-based mining, is being wiped out in just a few weeks.
> With Bitcoin, having lots of coins doesn't give you any new free coins, unlike fiat money.
Fiat money doesn't give your free money either. You have to invest in something - and there's plenty of fee-limited options in the cryptocurrency world as well.
> And this isn't a vague promise, some 60/70% of the hashrate from China, which include most coal-based mining, is being wiped out in just a few weeks.
Because the price is so low, not because they want to help the environment. At the next peak everyone will be happy to burn whatever fuel is cheaper than the payout again.
Fiat money doesn't give your free money either. You have to invest in something - and there's plenty of fee-limited options in the cryptocurrency world as well.
> And this isn't a vague promise, some 60/70% of the hashrate from China, which include most coal-based mining, is being wiped out in just a few weeks.
Because the price is so low, not because they want to help the environment. At the next peak everyone will be happy to burn whatever fuel is cheaper than the payout again.
Fiat money does give you free money. We happen to live in exceptional times where interest rates are close to zero, but in general, simply owning fiat gives you free new fiat. The same is not true for Bitcoin in itself.
Nobody wants to help the environment. The typical US lifestyle would require 8 planets if it was rolled out across the world's population. Just leaving your phone plugged in uses more energy than all of crypto mining combined.
So don't preach about caring, nobody cares. They say they do, but don't. So yes, miners seek out cheap renewables, which is motivated by profit, not helping the environment. As said, none of us are better. We don't care. But if a profit-based incentive leads to renewable energy usage and helping the environment as a side-effect, I'm all for it.
Nobody wants to help the environment. The typical US lifestyle would require 8 planets if it was rolled out across the world's population. Just leaving your phone plugged in uses more energy than all of crypto mining combined.
So don't preach about caring, nobody cares. They say they do, but don't. So yes, miners seek out cheap renewables, which is motivated by profit, not helping the environment. As said, none of us are better. We don't care. But if a profit-based incentive leads to renewable energy usage and helping the environment as a side-effect, I'm all for it.
Owning fiat does not give you free money. Giving it to a bank which will pay you interest on the account (or various investments) is what gives you more.
But the same applies to BTC with BlockFi / BIA.
But the same applies to BTC with BlockFi / BIA.
You're grasping at straws when you imply people have piles of cash at home whom then "give" it to a bank. It's already in the bank. You get paid directly to your bank account and get additional fiat without a single action on your behalf, with full legal protection. Interest, growing fiat from fiat, is directly integrated into fiat itself.
Not true for Bitcoin. Neither owning your coins in a wallet nor leaving them on an exchange grows your amount of Bitcoin.
Can you give away your Bitcoin to some rogue, fully unregulated party claiming you get back more Bitcoin? Yes, in the same way I can give my fiat to some shady character in the streets. I may get back more fiat. Or I may be permanently parted from my coins.
These things are not the same. Bitcoin does not have interest built in. Not at bank level nor at central bank level. This is radically different from fiat.
Not true for Bitcoin. Neither owning your coins in a wallet nor leaving them on an exchange grows your amount of Bitcoin.
Can you give away your Bitcoin to some rogue, fully unregulated party claiming you get back more Bitcoin? Yes, in the same way I can give my fiat to some shady character in the streets. I may get back more fiat. Or I may be permanently parted from my coins.
These things are not the same. Bitcoin does not have interest built in. Not at bank level nor at central bank level. This is radically different from fiat.
> You're grasping at straws when you imply people have piles of cash at home whom then "give" it to a bank.
Into an interest paying account - yes. A savings account like that may be the "don't even mention it" default for you and me. But not for:
- unbanked people in the US (~6%)
- and in the world (much larger https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/06/raw-data-unba...)
- people with non-interest-paying accounts for religious reasons
- people in countries where interest is ~0% or negative (https://dqydj.com/negative-savings-accounts/)
Into an interest paying account - yes. A savings account like that may be the "don't even mention it" default for you and me. But not for:
- unbanked people in the US (~6%)
- and in the world (much larger https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/06/raw-data-unba...)
- people with non-interest-paying accounts for religious reasons
- people in countries where interest is ~0% or negative (https://dqydj.com/negative-savings-accounts/)
There is approximately 0 unbanked storing wealth in Bitcoin.
Is that so?
Ever heard of the African Bitcoin community, a transnational initiative running for years now that resulted in Africa growing fastest in addresses of all continents?
Or what about El Salvador, 70% unbanked, where every single citizen will get a first small BTC deposit from the government, thereby becoming banked by the millions?
And what about Libya? You know, that country with a crashing currency that next blocked access to bank accounts for months, it all going up in smoke? Looked into the BTC numbers there?
So tell me, were you completely unaware of this at all, or do you find these people not important enough to count as more than zero?
Ever heard of the African Bitcoin community, a transnational initiative running for years now that resulted in Africa growing fastest in addresses of all continents?
Or what about El Salvador, 70% unbanked, where every single citizen will get a first small BTC deposit from the government, thereby becoming banked by the millions?
And what about Libya? You know, that country with a crashing currency that next blocked access to bank accounts for months, it all going up in smoke? Looked into the BTC numbers there?
So tell me, were you completely unaware of this at all, or do you find these people not important enough to count as more than zero?
> Bitcoin doesn't hurt the poor
The impacts of climate change, which Bitcoin unquestionably contributes to, skew significantly towards poorer countries.
And the consumer protections built into the regulations around fiat currencies are there to protect people who can't afford teams of accountants and lawyers.
The impacts of climate change, which Bitcoin unquestionably contributes to, skew significantly towards poorer countries.
And the consumer protections built into the regulations around fiat currencies are there to protect people who can't afford teams of accountants and lawyers.
>accelerates environmental destruction
Ethereum is working on moving to proof-of-stake within the next year, which completely removes its need for energy-intensive proof-of-work mining.
Ethereum is working on moving to proof-of-stake within the next year, which completely removes its need for energy-intensive proof-of-work mining.
Ethereum keeps kicking the can on this, and not for technical reasons.
> “One of the biggest problems I’ve found with our project is not the technical problems, it’s problems related with people”. - Buterin
https://tokenist.com/buterin-explains-why-ethereum-2-0-upgra...
Given that the reasons are political rather than engineering in nature, there's no way to put a timeline on them.
> “One of the biggest problems I’ve found with our project is not the technical problems, it’s problems related with people”. - Buterin
https://tokenist.com/buterin-explains-why-ethereum-2-0-upgra...
Given that the reasons are political rather than engineering in nature, there's no way to put a timeline on them.
That it incentivizes human trafficking and crime is pure hyperbole. Also turns out that the barrier to entry for crypto is lower in the 3rd world than you might think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvHN0MEBoZo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvHN0MEBoZo
I believe the synagogue shooter was paid in Bitcoin. So not pure hyperbole.
Edit: might have the details confused about above point, but the general thrust of things is pretty clear. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/19/neo-nazis-banked-on-bit...
Edit: might have the details confused about above point, but the general thrust of things is pretty clear. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/19/neo-nazis-banked-on-bit...
Well in that case, nothing incentivizes more crime than USD.
It’s more regulated though. That’s the point is there’s some control in usd, for better and worse.
Cash is the ultimate anonymous method of payment.
Cash is a physical thing that needs to be taken somewhere if you're using it to pay someone off or receive a payoff. That gives means to be apprehended at some point in the chain. Crypto on the other hand you just hand over the coins. The coins are sent to an exchange's wallet, mingled, then pulled out on another anonymous wallet. This is what makes it so great for ransoms.
Not necessarily. Bills have serial numbers on them. They can also be marked.
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Their complaint was not with your premise but the language. Rather than incentivizes perhaps facilitates.
Ethereum just forked the entire blockchain to undo a transaction they didn't like. I'm not sure if that's reassuring or a complete violation of the entire premise of smart contracts.
As long as everyone agrees i see absolutely no problem. The entire value proposition of decentralized blockchain is to establish consensus without trust. If everyone agrees to undo a transaction, it seems perfectly fine to me, as that would require the consensus the blockchain already establishes
> As long as everyone agrees i see absolutely no problem.
They didn't all agree, though. Now there's Ethereum (the people who agreed with the fork) and Ethereum Classic (the people who didn't agree).
They didn't all agree, though. Now there's Ethereum (the people who agreed with the fork) and Ethereum Classic (the people who didn't agree).
Some agreed, others didn't and they decided to create a fork. Consensus doesn't require everyone to agree, just the majority
You're literally talking across yourself, at least that's how I read it.
Your first comment [1]
> As long as everyone agrees i see absolutely no problem
and now
> Some agreed, others didn't...Consensus doesn't require everyone to agree, just the majority
So you literally just said there is a problem.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27666781
Your first comment [1]
> As long as everyone agrees i see absolutely no problem
and now
> Some agreed, others didn't...Consensus doesn't require everyone to agree, just the majority
So you literally just said there is a problem.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27666781
You're being pedantic, it's clear what was meant even if it wasn't properly stated.
It was clear that it was a contradiction even if you don't want to acknowledge it.
Thank goodness we've gotten away from a system where the government can arbitrarily decide to steal my money and towards a glorious future where a bunch of randos on the internet can arbitrarily decide to steal my money. I feel so much better.
(copy-pasting)
The DAO was a very extraordinary event that occurred under very unique and unrepeatable circumstances.
1. Ethereum had just launched. There was a sense of everything being in beta.
2. The Ethereum stakeholder set was very small, so obtaining consensus for such a controversial hard fork was much easier to accomplish than it would be today.
3. The economy on Ethereum was very small, so
a) a hard fork was far less disruptive than it would be today.
b) an undermining of Ethereum's commitment to neutrality/immutability jeapardized far fewer decentralized application projects than it would today.
4. Smart contracts were completely new, so there was a sense that people could be forgiven for their mistakes.
5. The Ethereum Foundation had promoted the idea of a DAO on their website, and several Ethereum founders had promoted the specific DAO that ended up being hacked. These facts made the DAO appear to be more than a completely third party app.
Ethereum is very different today than it was in 2016, and a DAO-scale mishap would never lead to a hard fork again.
The DAO was a very extraordinary event that occurred under very unique and unrepeatable circumstances.
1. Ethereum had just launched. There was a sense of everything being in beta.
2. The Ethereum stakeholder set was very small, so obtaining consensus for such a controversial hard fork was much easier to accomplish than it would be today.
3. The economy on Ethereum was very small, so
a) a hard fork was far less disruptive than it would be today.
b) an undermining of Ethereum's commitment to neutrality/immutability jeapardized far fewer decentralized application projects than it would today.
4. Smart contracts were completely new, so there was a sense that people could be forgiven for their mistakes.
5. The Ethereum Foundation had promoted the idea of a DAO on their website, and several Ethereum founders had promoted the specific DAO that ended up being hacked. These facts made the DAO appear to be more than a completely third party app.
Ethereum is very different today than it was in 2016, and a DAO-scale mishap would never lead to a hard fork again.
One way of reading this comment is that you concur that there's a problem.
One way of reading this coontent is that most don't think there's a problem
They altered a state of a smart contract with consensus, although I believe this to be a mistake, they didn't roll back blocks or reorganize. Some miners used that opportunity continue a non-edited fork. I personally find this technical understanding to be distinctive from the common narrative.
I also don't think it matters and there is no consensus to do the same thing any longer.
The explanation for why they did it was because the transaction would have a very large percentage of Ether in the hands of one actor who would eventually be able to alter control of the future Proof of Stake network. If it was any other asset they wouldn't have bothered, and now much larger $ values are captured from people without any notice or fanfare. They didn't know it would be 7-9 years before Sharded Proof of Stake or the Beacon Chain would exist, and its likely that the means did justify the ends at that point in time as many of their supporters and institutional supporters had their funds in that contract.
I also don't think it matters and there is no consensus to do the same thing any longer.
The explanation for why they did it was because the transaction would have a very large percentage of Ether in the hands of one actor who would eventually be able to alter control of the future Proof of Stake network. If it was any other asset they wouldn't have bothered, and now much larger $ values are captured from people without any notice or fanfare. They didn't know it would be 7-9 years before Sharded Proof of Stake or the Beacon Chain would exist, and its likely that the means did justify the ends at that point in time as many of their supporters and institutional supporters had their funds in that contract.
It's possible, but approximately no one in the shitcoin industry knows or cares enough to write fully formally verified programs.
Are there even any dependently typed smart contract languages that would allow you to encode and carry proofs in your contracts?
Without that I think the best you could do is model your program in some other formal verification system and then convince yourself that your model matches the actual contract.
Without that I think the best you could do is model your program in some other formal verification system and then convince yourself that your model matches the actual contract.
The Simplicity language is good. I’m sure there are other designs.
Ok I did a really shallow search of the smart contract space and it looks like the trend is towards creating simple languages that are easy to reason about and formalize their semantics. Simplicity seems to be the best example of this.
With such a language you can write proofs about the behavior of the runtime using some proof checker and then programs in it should be simple enough to reason about in a rigorous way.
What I have not seen and what I am curious about is a smart contract language more in the spirit of Idris. That is to say a more complex language design with full dependent types, which would be a lot more difficult to formalize, but would allow you to do really nice things like treat proofs as first class citizens in your actual smart contracts.
With such a language you can write proofs about the behavior of the runtime using some proof checker and then programs in it should be simple enough to reason about in a rigorous way.
What I have not seen and what I am curious about is a smart contract language more in the spirit of Idris. That is to say a more complex language design with full dependent types, which would be a lot more difficult to formalize, but would allow you to do really nice things like treat proofs as first class citizens in your actual smart contracts.
I think in most cases you wouldn’t want something like idris as a smart contract language on any kind of cryptographic system (blockchain, ZKP system, whatever) because idris programs are expensive to typecheck and evaluate. It would be reasonable to construct a DSL or something in idris that compiles a compact, easily computable language though.
The idea about having proofs as values in smart contracts is interesting though. I could see a few neat applications of that.
The idea about having proofs as values in smart contracts is interesting though. I could see a few neat applications of that.
Yeah I agree that Idris itself would be much too large, however you could write a much smaller Lambda Pi that could still enable a lot of nice features.
Ever heard of Cardano?
Can there ever be 'bug free' software? As a lifelong programmer, I'm starting to think that it's impossible to write perfect software free from bugs.
In some cases, yes. See Software Verification [1] for some pointers.
It's massively more expensive, so you'll see it used in aerospace, railway signalling, some vehicles (trains, components of some cars), power generation and distribution, industrial processes.
Sometimes also in consumer products that have long warranties and are extremely expensive to recall/repair, like washing machines.
Just yesterday was a post on a formally-verified C compiler, used by Airbus (and others) [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_verification
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27648735
It's massively more expensive, so you'll see it used in aerospace, railway signalling, some vehicles (trains, components of some cars), power generation and distribution, industrial processes.
Sometimes also in consumer products that have long warranties and are extremely expensive to recall/repair, like washing machines.
Just yesterday was a post on a formally-verified C compiler, used by Airbus (and others) [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_verification
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27648735
Software verification can make a system ≈ bug free from a pragmatic perspective, but, there are still holes: humans do the verification, and there are practical limitations to the scope of system and integration tests. The fact that we still find zero-days (and other bugs) on systems that have gone through software verification is evidence of this.
Can a single program be proven bug free? Sure. Can we do that for arbitrary programs? No.
This may interest you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice's_theorem
This may interest you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice's_theorem
> Can there ever be 'bug free' software?
Sure. And if you look at sufficiently small-scale pieces of software, there is probably a lot. As scope of a software system increases, the probability of bugs rapidly approaches unity, though.
Sure. And if you look at sufficiently small-scale pieces of software, there is probably a lot. As scope of a software system increases, the probability of bugs rapidly approaches unity, though.
It depends on what you mean by bug. Often, requirements change, and now the program doesn't meet requirements; that's not something you can avoid.
Ensuring your requirements are correct is possible, but often hard. Ensuring your software meets the requirements is possible, but often hard, especially if you need to consider hardware failure or defects.
Ensuring your requirements are correct is possible, but often hard. Ensuring your software meets the requirements is possible, but often hard, especially if you need to consider hardware failure or defects.
Technically, I don't see why it would be impossible. Seems like it is incredibly unlikely.
> Can there ever be 'bug free' software?
Only in academia
Only in academia
I thought that was conventional wisdom.
I don't see it as a flaw. It's all part of the game and the fact that things like this can happen just makes it more intriguing. Obviously only valid if you, like me, see it as a futuristic/cyberpunk financial experiment or art project.
The problem here is really Ethereum and the language Solidity. Chuck full of gotchas and completely horrible to work with.
The mechanics of stable coins is really trivial and thusly should be trivial to implement and validate. Unfortunately it is not, and it is sad that the hype and investment rush inside the broader crypto field does not foster languages and platforms that actually are suitable for the few realworld use cases that exists inside crypto.
The mechanics of stable coins is really trivial and thusly should be trivial to implement and validate. Unfortunately it is not, and it is sad that the hype and investment rush inside the broader crypto field does not foster languages and platforms that actually are suitable for the few realworld use cases that exists inside crypto.
How are they trivial? From my limited knowledge they are basically trying to stabilize a speculative asset using another speculative asset. To me it seems like an essentially impossible task.
Yeah. In theory they are broken.
But in practice they can work for a while.
They work by taking a collateral and splitting in two. The first part has some fixed value in an external currency. The other part is the rest. And that works as long as the rest has some value.
However here we are talking about programming errors in the implementation. And Solidity/Ethereum is really at fault.
How do you implement a contract in Ethereum where a certain thing happens the price of Ethereum drops below XXXX dollars? You can (as this is what MakerDAO and others are doing) only it is silly complex to do.
It really should not be.
But in practice they can work for a while.
They work by taking a collateral and splitting in two. The first part has some fixed value in an external currency. The other part is the rest. And that works as long as the rest has some value.
However here we are talking about programming errors in the implementation. And Solidity/Ethereum is really at fault.
How do you implement a contract in Ethereum where a certain thing happens the price of Ethereum drops below XXXX dollars? You can (as this is what MakerDAO and others are doing) only it is silly complex to do.
It really should not be.
Most things are simple in theory and not so simple in practice. Also just because people write programs with bugs doesn't mean the language or platform is at fault. Sorry but it sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about.
EOS tried to use on-chain Ricardian Contracts and pair that with upgradeable smart contracts in C++ with DPoS consensus so that intent-of-code could be enforced. That's pretty "real world" but most people feel it's not unstoppable enough.
Ethereum is pretty unstoppable, but unless you use a contract proxy, your contracts are immutable and bugs that can be exploited will be exploited.
Ethereum is pretty unstoppable, but unless you use a contract proxy, your contracts are immutable and bugs that can be exploited will be exploited.
Contracts need to be written in a specialized language not a general purpose language like c++.
Until lawyers become coders or coders become lawyers I don't even see who could review them.
I actually know a guy who does both. Nothing further to add, just thought it was funny that I actually know a lawyer who does some programming.
I think he was going to college for computer science and then switched to law. Last I heard from him, he was running for a judgeship.
I think he was going to college for computer science and then switched to law. Last I heard from him, he was running for a judgeship.
On the other hand, it's fully auditable and transparent. Who knows if my bank's software is stealing a couple dollars from me every month due to "software bugs" as well. I'd need to setup a bot to check my balance every day to make sure.
Point is not whether my bank is malicious, but just that there's bugs everywhere and we'll have a few big "rug pulls" as this defi stuff is in prototype phase, but it will eventually grow mature. A flaw in Windows can lead to incredible losses too, but we've grown past that.
Point is not whether my bank is malicious, but just that there's bugs everywhere and we'll have a few big "rug pulls" as this defi stuff is in prototype phase, but it will eventually grow mature. A flaw in Windows can lead to incredible losses too, but we've grown past that.
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The plus side is that smart contracts provide their own "bug bounty" programme. If a smart contract that handles a coin with a market cap of +50M USD has not been breached, I absolutely trust that contract to be safe.
Then it becomes a matter of game theory as to whether you cash in the bug immediately to empty the pot, or wait for it to grow even more from the positive feedback loop of it being "obviously bug free if it grew this large". For state-sponsored actors, 50M would only be a modest sum.
Agreed. And it's the auditors who need to get better.
A lifetime of experience has shown us that code review and testing are never sufficient to eliminate bugs. What we need to do is abandon the concept of smart contracts that immutably and permanently move people's money with zero recourse - running exposed to the internet without a firewall.
Would an "upgradeable" crypto-coin solve that flaw?
Immutability is at the heart of blockchain functionality. Everything involved requires it. So, you'ld have to throw it all out and try to invent something entirely different.
Have you heard of Tezos?
Tezos is often referred to as the first “self-amending” blockchain, which routinely adapts and adopts new features natively and automatically via its unique on-chain governance mechanism. This protocol functionality allows the system to coordinate the selection of new updates though popular voting, integrate the new updates that are selected, and compensate the developers who proposed them. [1]
[1] https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/what-is-tezos-xtz-governa...
Tezos is often referred to as the first “self-amending” blockchain, which routinely adapts and adopts new features natively and automatically via its unique on-chain governance mechanism. This protocol functionality allows the system to coordinate the selection of new updates though popular voting, integrate the new updates that are selected, and compensate the developers who proposed them. [1]
[1] https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/what-is-tezos-xtz-governa...
Lot of buzz words to say soft forks. Also this has nothing to do with upgradeable contracts.
> has nothing to do with upgradeable contracts.
Although the article is talking about the SafeDollar contract, there were some general points about crypto / blockchain in this thread that I was responding to. Tezos is one example that has on-chain governance, which is why I mentioned it.
If you want to provide more info about how the on-chain governance is really just done through soft forks, and why you think that's not innovative, I'd be curious to hear. I'm not huge on Tezos but I think they do some interesting things.
Although the article is talking about the SafeDollar contract, there were some general points about crypto / blockchain in this thread that I was responding to. Tezos is one example that has on-chain governance, which is why I mentioned it.
If you want to provide more info about how the on-chain governance is really just done through soft forks, and why you think that's not innovative, I'd be curious to hear. I'm not huge on Tezos but I think they do some interesting things.
Tezor governance is for protocol upgrade. They vote and push them through as a soft fork. There's really nothing different there but they market it like it's something special. This has nothing to do with contract upgrades, although ethereum is at the forefront with having contracts that are upgradeable via DAO voting.
Thanks!
That’s not true, upgradable contracts using proxies is a common pattern.
A contract isn't a blockchain.
Complete with a crypto court...
Upgrade to fiat currency that the rest of the world runs on and doesn't have these problems?
Human beings write software that flies people around the world and shuttles people between the Earth and space. Managing money is not more important than many things we use software for.
1. Not always correctly, as seen with the 737 MAX.
2. We have a general AI exception handler called a pilot.
3. Many of those systems have hardware redundancies, so even if there is a bug, hardware can stop it. A fuse might blow instead.
2. We have a general AI exception handler called a pilot.
3. Many of those systems have hardware redundancies, so even if there is a bug, hardware can stop it. A fuse might blow instead.
Putting your money in one of these smart contracts is like getting on a fully autonomous plane, with no pilot.
And you get a refund for your plane ticket if you reach your destination, but if you don't, whoever figured out the trick to crash the internet-connected plane gets to keep all the ticket money. And that could be the same person who wrote the plane's software.
And you get a refund for your plane ticket if you reach your destination, but if you don't, whoever figured out the trick to crash the internet-connected plane gets to keep all the ticket money. And that could be the same person who wrote the plane's software.
Surely you see the difference between managing money on the open internet and closed systems such as planes and spaceshipts.
The incentives to break those other pieces of software are different.
Very few people are incentivized to hack planes to crash and kill people. Even fewer are incentivized to hack the space shuttle. Not to mention those pieces are rarely exposed on the public internet, or have connectivity at all.
But massive amounts of nigh-untraceable free money? Ton's of people are incentivized to go for that.
The incentives to break those other pieces of software are different.
Very few people are incentivized to hack planes to crash and kill people. Even fewer are incentivized to hack the space shuttle. Not to mention those pieces are rarely exposed on the public internet, or have connectivity at all.
But massive amounts of nigh-untraceable free money? Ton's of people are incentivized to go for that.
Software that you can't update is borderline not-software.
It's hardware with no joysticks for humans to adjust. It just happens to be hardware that's implemented in code.
It's hardware with no joysticks for humans to adjust. It just happens to be hardware that's implemented in code.
You can upgrade many smart contracts with proper practice.
Those systems have built in redundancies. They don't assume trustless 100% bug-free code.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but that software in most cases isn't constantly under attack from another team of engineers trying to blow up all the planes.
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This is one of the biggest reasons I like Cardano. It's written in Haskell and its contract language is functional and heavily inspired - meaning that code gets many of the functional benefits: it is more concise, more readable, less prone to side effects, and more often than non-functional code won't run at all if mistakes are made.
The trade offs in functional languages seem to well suited for the world of smart contracts, that I almost think of smart contracts as the retro-active problem that functional programming solves. Granted, I appreciate functional programming and good code enough where I wish all code met the standards required for FP, but the real world is much messier; when large amounts of money are so directly on the line though I think its obvious the compromise is worth it.
Smart contracts are like launching a rocket - you don't optimize for development time. FP forces a bit more safety.
The trade offs in functional languages seem to well suited for the world of smart contracts, that I almost think of smart contracts as the retro-active problem that functional programming solves. Granted, I appreciate functional programming and good code enough where I wish all code met the standards required for FP, but the real world is much messier; when large amounts of money are so directly on the line though I think its obvious the compromise is worth it.
Smart contracts are like launching a rocket - you don't optimize for development time. FP forces a bit more safety.
How is that different from a traditional contract written by a lawyer? A single word could leave a huge unexpected hole in a traditional contract.
In contract law, intent is the key part, so if the "hole" is truly unexpected (e.g. the most significant errors that come to mind would be an accidental omission of "not" which completely reverses the meaning of the contract; or perhaps a mistaken swap in the description of who pays whom) then it would be reasonable to demonstrate that is was not what either of the parties intended, and thus that single mistaken word simply does not matter and would be ignored.
What you do get in contract disputes where specific wording matters is in edge cases where you might reasonably assert that both parties wanted (and agreed) A or not-A for some specific situation as part of the negotiation, disputing where exactly some boundary lies - but not for the core parts or complete reversal. On the other hand, automatically enforced "smart contracts" don't make such a distinction and any typo can reverse the core meaning of the contract as well.
What you do get in contract disputes where specific wording matters is in edge cases where you might reasonably assert that both parties wanted (and agreed) A or not-A for some specific situation as part of the negotiation, disputing where exactly some boundary lies - but not for the core parts or complete reversal. On the other hand, automatically enforced "smart contracts" don't make such a distinction and any typo can reverse the core meaning of the contract as well.
Because traditional contracts can be interpreted by a court of law and adjudicated with context. There's an entire field of contract law, with hundreds of years of precedent to fix very obvious human errors, like a typo where neither party could have possibly meant what is "technically" in the contract.
> Because traditional contracts can be interpreted by a court of law and adjudicated with context.
And all of that is a kind of technology that many "technology" people are far too eager to throw away for spurious reasons (often because they just plain don't understand it).
It's like if someone was working on autopilot program and rewrote it in a "modern" language, and "simplified" it in the process by dropping a bunch of "unnecessary" use cases...then it turns out that at least some of those cases were there for good reason and a bunch of planes crash. A lot of cryptocurrency and blockchain stuff is half-baked because it seems focus on faddish technology for its own sake rather than trying to actually build someone that works.
And all of that is a kind of technology that many "technology" people are far too eager to throw away for spurious reasons (often because they just plain don't understand it).
It's like if someone was working on autopilot program and rewrote it in a "modern" language, and "simplified" it in the process by dropping a bunch of "unnecessary" use cases...then it turns out that at least some of those cases were there for good reason and a bunch of planes crash. A lot of cryptocurrency and blockchain stuff is half-baked because it seems focus on faddish technology for its own sake rather than trying to actually build someone that works.
Part of contract law is that the legal standard for enforceability is "reasonableness"[1]. If there is a clause in a contract that you want to exercise, but your counterparty claims they didn't understand it or intend it they can take you to court. Unless you can convince a judge that they might, at one time, have wanted to agree to the contract then the contract is not a basis for you to take that action.
Contracts have always had a healthy dose of manual debugging that have allowed them to function.
[1] The idea of "a reasonable person" is used heavily in the US legal system and has problems but it also has upsides.
Contracts have always had a healthy dose of manual debugging that have allowed them to function.
[1] The idea of "a reasonable person" is used heavily in the US legal system and has problems but it also has upsides.
The difference is that disputes are resolved by humans who attempt to determine intent.
With a traditional contract you don't have to worry about an unrelated 3rd party coming in and taking all your assets. And if you have a mistake in a contract that governs a business relationship there's a lot of incentive on both sides to compromise (assuming it's a good relationship).
Regular written contracts are not automatically enforced.
Not a lawyer here but I’m guessing.
Not all legal loopholes automatically deprive you of all your savings. Intentional loop holes only go so far before consumer protection or other entities overwrite it. And if both parties are in agreement and in good standing you can figure out a way to find a reasonable compromise.
Not a lawyer here but I’m guessing.
Not all legal loopholes automatically deprive you of all your savings. Intentional loop holes only go so far before consumer protection or other entities overwrite it. And if both parties are in agreement and in good standing you can figure out a way to find a reasonable compromise.
Indeed, contracts can be invalidated if they're abusive. For example, there's a doctrine in contract law called unconscionability. If you buy an airline ticket to Boston, the captain can't say upon landing "Welcome to Boston! You can pay $10,000 to deplane or we'll take you back to where you departed." Or let's say that, when you agree to the terms for a e-commerce site, buried deep in the terms is a clause saying the site gets half the money in your bank account. Sure, both parties might've technically agreed to the contract, but the contract probably isn't enforceable.
*Not a lawyer either, but I've read some introductory contract law stuff. All I know is this: you don't want to rely on the courts to save you, since they generally err on the side of the literal contract, but I don't spend much time worrying about accidentally agreeing to a contract that will sell myself into slavery.
*Not a lawyer either, but I've read some introductory contract law stuff. All I know is this: you don't want to rely on the courts to save you, since they generally err on the side of the literal contract, but I don't spend much time worrying about accidentally agreeing to a contract that will sell myself into slavery.
There's actually some chance that a poorly written contract, can be fixed / worked out between the parties involved.
I'll take some chance over no chance.
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The parties in a dispute like that are likely to settle out of court, in a somewhat reasonable manner, instead of blindly applying the law until a judge automaton reaches a decision following the letter of the law.
With a smart contract, there can be no negotiation and attempt at reconciliation. The price here will never recover from $0, so at a single point in time $248,000 was transferred from bag holders to beneficiaries.
With a smart contract, there can be no negotiation and attempt at reconciliation. The price here will never recover from $0, so at a single point in time $248,000 was transferred from bag holders to beneficiaries.
Lawyers argue over ambiguities or mistakes and use precedent to solve these issues, smart contracts don't have that extra level of protection.
> I simply don't think it's possible for human beings to write good enough software for smart contracts.
I agree, but think it's fixable. I believe we have missed a natural platform in between binary notation and computer languages.
I believe there is a 2-D dimensional binary. Simply using a grid (with an array of cells forming a line, and lines stacked on top of each other—a spreadsheet basically), we can drop *all* syntax characters. The only thing you have is your cells and your semantic words.
Not only does this make tooling and languages much simpler (which will have big network effects), but you gain new fundamental complexity metrics which may turn out to be incredibly important in designing simple, bug free systems.
I personally really like crypto but it's not one of my main interests. I have been working with some folks in the space on using these ideas to build a new type of blockchain from the ground up. I bet that the biggest blockchain in the future will be a higher dimensional one, based on Tree Notation or derivatives of the core ideas.
I agree, but think it's fixable. I believe we have missed a natural platform in between binary notation and computer languages.
I believe there is a 2-D dimensional binary. Simply using a grid (with an array of cells forming a line, and lines stacked on top of each other—a spreadsheet basically), we can drop *all* syntax characters. The only thing you have is your cells and your semantic words.
Not only does this make tooling and languages much simpler (which will have big network effects), but you gain new fundamental complexity metrics which may turn out to be incredibly important in designing simple, bug free systems.
I personally really like crypto but it's not one of my main interests. I have been working with some folks in the space on using these ideas to build a new type of blockchain from the ground up. I bet that the biggest blockchain in the future will be a higher dimensional one, based on Tree Notation or derivatives of the core ideas.
> I believe there is a 2-D dimensional binary. Simply using a grid (with an array of cells forming a line, and lines stacked on top of each other—a spreadsheet basically), we can drop all syntax characters. The only thing you have is your cells and your semantic words.
I fail to see how this helps.
The reason why bugs crop up all the time in software isn't because syntax is confusing. It's also not because semantics is confusing--plenty of bugs have perfectly clear, well-understood bugs. The problem is that we as programmers don't think about how our software could fail. We don't ask ourselves "could this multiplication overflow?" frequently enough. We don't look at code and ask "who made sure this pointer points to valid data?" We believe that there's no way the price of an affiliated token could ever reach exactly $0, so we assert that it can't happen.
The way you avoid these bugs is to just simply make it impossible for the system to get into certain states. It's already the case with statically-typed languages that it's impossible to pass a string to a function that expected an int. If you design your API right, you can make it impossible to get an index into an array that is out-of-range (although this is way too rarely done). But, even then, you will still find people who will confidently use the escape hatch to say "this string is clearly UTF-8, I know it is from outside experience, so don't bother checking."
I fail to see how this helps.
The reason why bugs crop up all the time in software isn't because syntax is confusing. It's also not because semantics is confusing--plenty of bugs have perfectly clear, well-understood bugs. The problem is that we as programmers don't think about how our software could fail. We don't ask ourselves "could this multiplication overflow?" frequently enough. We don't look at code and ask "who made sure this pointer points to valid data?" We believe that there's no way the price of an affiliated token could ever reach exactly $0, so we assert that it can't happen.
The way you avoid these bugs is to just simply make it impossible for the system to get into certain states. It's already the case with statically-typed languages that it's impossible to pass a string to a function that expected an int. If you design your API right, you can make it impossible to get an index into an array that is out-of-range (although this is way too rarely done). But, even then, you will still find people who will confidently use the escape hatch to say "this string is clearly UTF-8, I know it is from outside experience, so don't bother checking."
Just to add, things like type checking are the comparatively easy part. The world itself and many of our constructs for thinking about it are not well defined. The trouble in reconciling these things are why things like appeals courts exist. Smart contracts built on this ill defined world will always have bugs. The world isn’t going to become significantly more well defined for smart contracts, either. If that were possible, we wouldn’t have those aforementioned higher courts.
All parts in a system have a probability of failure. A bug in a well-engineered system is only a problem when a long series of things simultaneously go wrong. Tree Notation (2D languages), can be used at all layers, from microcode to assembly to system langs to interpreted langs to user facing high level langs. It's simplicity will decrease the probability of failure at each layer of the stack, causing a huge improvement in total reliability of systems. It even works great with paper! Easy to make fallbacks for when the network goes down.
Can you elaborate on your last paragraph or point me somewhere?
I can't yet, sorry! My general research on Tree Languages, as well as a number of products I make, is all open source and public domain, but (sadly since research funding is not so advanced) I do have to be a bit pragmatic and make some money here and there. There might be some bits and pieces out there.
The fact that this is trending on HN shows how little hacker news knows about the cryptocurrency space. A relatively unknown, recently launched stablecoin collapsing is not big news in crypto.
Now if dai, usdc or usdt had failed, that would be a big deal.
Now if dai, usdc or usdt had failed, that would be a big deal.
> A relatively unknown, recently launched stablecoin collapsing is not big news in crypto.
The fact that some people think a $250,000 heist followed by the collapse of a half a million dollar stablecoin is "not news" underscores how ridiculous the cryptocurrency space is right now.
The fact that some people think a $250,000 heist followed by the collapse of a half a million dollar stablecoin is "not news" underscores how ridiculous the cryptocurrency space is right now.
250k is nothing compared to the biggest defi losses: https://rekt.news/leaderboard/
From the link
>These protocols are listed with respect; we appreciate and understand the work that lies behind each name.
Title of leaderboard, REKT.
Title of leaderboard, REKT.
Thank you for sharing this. But holy moly, what has happened in April in the crypto space?!
i think the quantity of scams generally increases in bubbles
Nah its just a small, irrelevant project falling apart. That has nothing to do with the cryptocurrency space. Amounts this small rarely makes the news in the crypto space and happen every day. They also barely make the news in the fiat space and happen every day.
VCs blowing an order of magnitude more on coke doesn't make the news
A VC publicly saying "I don't spend money on coke" as a marketing tactic and then getting busted doing just that would make the news. Much like a coin that claims "this coin is stable and its value is tied to USD" getting looted and crashing to $0 also makes the news.
Well, it wouldn't make the news if the price dropped because the actual USD value dropped to zero. That would be perfectly legitimate. Of course the world would be burning as 5lb bags of rice became worth a dozen human lives, so tech news in general might not be very top of mind at that point.
Me shouting "I'm a VC and I don't spend money on coke" and then getting busted doing just that would not make news, as I'm nobody.
Same here.
You don't have half a million dollars invested in the thing you claim to be, to then blow. Unlike a VC or this coin. That analogy doesn't work.
If someone blows millions of dollars on coke I very much want to read that article. Why would that not get reported, are you sure?
I’m sure he was exaggerating,
But it’s definitely true that half a mission is nothing for
VCs and its pocket change in terms of market cap.
I don't know much about this space but a half million dollar marketcap is absolutely tiny and non-news. BTC market cap is what, close to a trillion or something?
The top 10 stablecoins together have a total market cap of around $100 billion. Of that, $62 billion is tether, and the next largest is USDC at $26 billion, then BUSD at $10 billion.
It is interesting that these exploits still happen.
It is interesting that these exploits still happen.
Those are based on the trust of the companies behind them though and don’t collapse so suddenly. Also MT.GOX took several days to fully collapse.
That's literally one junior software engineer's annual salary. It honestly is negligible in the context of the crypto market.
Unrelated to the main thread but what jobs pay junior's 250k? Asking for a friend...
I suppose I should have said mid level devs, which is more common in tech hubs.
Although, junior devs certainly can get that much at top tier companies in SF, but you have to be really good to get them.
Although, junior devs certainly can get that much at top tier companies in SF, but you have to be really good to get them.
> Now if dai, usdc or usdt had failed, that would be a big deal.
The “Dai” peg did break — both in early 2020 [1], and a few days after launching. DAI’s now 60% backed by Tether like instruments. It’s basically a strictly worse version of Facebook’s Libra, assuming Libra weren’t crippled by state regulators (Libra is now Diem).
Every major algorithmic stablecoin has imploded at least once in times of market volatility. Preston Byrne has written a wonderful article explaining why the concept is clearly unsound and theoretically flawed [2]:
Unfortunately, when stablecoins break, they get propped up by biased investors in closely linked pseudo equities who limp the imploded stablecoin along by injecting more capital and then powering on the hype machine.
[1]: https://blog.makerdao.com/the-market-collapse-of-march-12-20...
[2]: https://prestonbyrne.com/2018/01/11/epicaricacy/
The “Dai” peg did break — both in early 2020 [1], and a few days after launching. DAI’s now 60% backed by Tether like instruments. It’s basically a strictly worse version of Facebook’s Libra, assuming Libra weren’t crippled by state regulators (Libra is now Diem).
Every major algorithmic stablecoin has imploded at least once in times of market volatility. Preston Byrne has written a wonderful article explaining why the concept is clearly unsound and theoretically flawed [2]:
When you make a “coin” which is in form and substance a repackaged
exposure to another underlying cryptocurrency, as Dai is simply
repackaged Ether, and Basecoin is simply an abstraction of demand
for “Base bonds,” and peg that exposure to some meatspace asset
like an ounce of gold or a U.S. dollar, a sudden move against the
underlying collateral – in this case, 12% – can trigger a sell-off
that breaks that peg, and breaks it hard.
Unfortunately, when stablecoins break, they get propped up by biased investors in closely linked pseudo equities who limp the imploded stablecoin along by injecting more capital and then powering on the hype machine.
[1]: https://blog.makerdao.com/the-market-collapse-of-march-12-20...
[2]: https://prestonbyrne.com/2018/01/11/epicaricacy/
For anyone interested in what backs DAI: https://backeddai.makerdao.network/What-backs-my-Dai-9b5ce66...
I think it's pretty obvious that people here are very literate about the cryptocurrency space and just find it amusing, apparently to the chagrin of true believers.
Quite the opposite.
It's valid, healthy and even recommended to have significant skepticism regarding crypto. I think that's fair game, as about 90% (or more) of coins are pump-and-dump schemes. Further, almost everything "Defi" is supremely risky, as they are completely unregulated, not insured, often lack liquidity, and can go down the drain at moment's notice.
Fine. However, there's a general anti-crypto stance here largely based on outdated mainstream narratives that if you truly would be literate about crypto, could only laugh at.
So this community is not "very literate", it doesn't even past the basic smell test.
It's valid, healthy and even recommended to have significant skepticism regarding crypto. I think that's fair game, as about 90% (or more) of coins are pump-and-dump schemes. Further, almost everything "Defi" is supremely risky, as they are completely unregulated, not insured, often lack liquidity, and can go down the drain at moment's notice.
Fine. However, there's a general anti-crypto stance here largely based on outdated mainstream narratives that if you truly would be literate about crypto, could only laugh at.
So this community is not "very literate", it doesn't even past the basic smell test.
> Fine. However, there's a general anti-crypto stance here largely based on outdated mainstream narratives that if you truly would be literate about crypto, could only laugh at.
Can you be specific about the narratives you're seeing on here that you are laughing at?
Can you be specific about the narratives you're seeing on here that you are laughing at?
Sure.
"Crypto is only used by criminals". Complete non-sense, cash is used far more often for illicit activities. In fact, blockchain forensics is developing so fast that crypto increasingly is very unattractive. Not only may they find you, your coins may become "tainted", and rejected by exchanges.
"Crypto is a scam". Inaccurate. Out of the 10,000 or so coins, most are scams. Yet there's at least two dozen or so serious long term projects, and these matter, as judged by their market cap.
"It's a pyramid scheme or ponzi fraud". No, in particular for the serious projects (Bitcoin, Ether), it does not meet this comparison at all. There is no single beneficiary doing a rug pull.
"Crypto boils the oceans". It doesn't. If you see it as an industry, it's greener than most other industries. And particular as we speak, almost all dirty mining (coal-based) is rapidly moving to renewables as miners are leaving China. And not just that, there's a mining council stimulating in particular stranded energy.
"It's worth zero". Well, I can't predict market prices, but the point here is that people have no idea about Bitcoin adaption. It grows by millions of users per week, faster than the rise of the internet and Facebook. Also, institutional investors are in, there's ETFs, the first nation accepting it as legal tender, the list goes on. It will face many more obstacles but the point is that this is no longer some weird internet cult, it's mainstream.
"Political rejection" Here I'm hinting at mostly liberals rejecting crypto based on political motives. Yet they quite literally fail to see the other side of the coin. Where Bitcoin besides being speculative, also has tremendous humanitarian value. It can help the poor unbanked to store/grow value. It can help people in inflationary regimes protect their property. It allows immigrants to cross borders without seizure. It allows immigrant arrivals to send back money to their homeland, without the middle man taking 35%. And perhaps closer to our first world, crypto may be the young's generation only chance to grow some wealth, as they are locked out of everything else.
I know, the above list make me sound like a proponent. I'm not, I'm confused, puzzled. And I embrace that. Because this entire thing is just too complex to slap a single label on.
"Crypto is only used by criminals". Complete non-sense, cash is used far more often for illicit activities. In fact, blockchain forensics is developing so fast that crypto increasingly is very unattractive. Not only may they find you, your coins may become "tainted", and rejected by exchanges.
"Crypto is a scam". Inaccurate. Out of the 10,000 or so coins, most are scams. Yet there's at least two dozen or so serious long term projects, and these matter, as judged by their market cap.
"It's a pyramid scheme or ponzi fraud". No, in particular for the serious projects (Bitcoin, Ether), it does not meet this comparison at all. There is no single beneficiary doing a rug pull.
"Crypto boils the oceans". It doesn't. If you see it as an industry, it's greener than most other industries. And particular as we speak, almost all dirty mining (coal-based) is rapidly moving to renewables as miners are leaving China. And not just that, there's a mining council stimulating in particular stranded energy.
"It's worth zero". Well, I can't predict market prices, but the point here is that people have no idea about Bitcoin adaption. It grows by millions of users per week, faster than the rise of the internet and Facebook. Also, institutional investors are in, there's ETFs, the first nation accepting it as legal tender, the list goes on. It will face many more obstacles but the point is that this is no longer some weird internet cult, it's mainstream.
"Political rejection" Here I'm hinting at mostly liberals rejecting crypto based on political motives. Yet they quite literally fail to see the other side of the coin. Where Bitcoin besides being speculative, also has tremendous humanitarian value. It can help the poor unbanked to store/grow value. It can help people in inflationary regimes protect their property. It allows immigrants to cross borders without seizure. It allows immigrant arrivals to send back money to their homeland, without the middle man taking 35%. And perhaps closer to our first world, crypto may be the young's generation only chance to grow some wealth, as they are locked out of everything else.
I know, the above list make me sound like a proponent. I'm not, I'm confused, puzzled. And I embrace that. Because this entire thing is just too complex to slap a single label on.
I don't think there's a strong anti-crypto stance here. It strikes me much more as a strong anti crypto-fanboy stance. I'm not saying there's no one on HN who doesn't like crypto. I just think that, as a technogy, the general sentiment is "it's not fully baked yet". When that runs head long into dogmatic refusal to admit to any problems with crypto as a concept or a particular currency, the sparks that fly may look anti-crypto.
[deleted]
Its the end of the bull run and $250k rugs/exploits are about as common as rainy days in London.
USDT failed a LONG time ago.
What is failure specifically? USDT (despite it's shadiness) trades at 1USDT:1$ on pretty much all exchanges and you can short it if you truly believe it'll flop anytime soon.
The question is are there really $1 USD for every $1USDT? The answer is surely not. You may be able to get your money out today but in the long run there is nearly a 100% chance you lose it all.
https://bitfinexed.medium.com/tether-is-setting-a-new-standa...
https://bitfinexed.medium.com/tether-is-setting-a-new-standa...
There isn't 1$ for every 1USDT, they said so themselves. It will eventually fail != "USDT failed a LONG time ago".
If you truly believe what you say, then you should definitely consider shorting it, if you're right you'll make a lot of money.
If you truly believe what you say, then you should definitely consider shorting it, if you're right you'll make a lot of money.
The failure spoken of is clearly the breach of the promise (and associated changing of literature) to back each by one USD.
However I'm very interested in the idea of shorting a "stable"coin. Who would possibly enter into this contract for an asset that has an upside of zero and a (potential, long-term, depending on your bearishness) downside of 100%?
In any case, with the strong likelihood Tether themselves are effectively shorting it by selling it unsecured by any real assets it would be a tough market to get in on.
However I'm very interested in the idea of shorting a "stable"coin. Who would possibly enter into this contract for an asset that has an upside of zero and a (potential, long-term, depending on your bearishness) downside of 100%?
In any case, with the strong likelihood Tether themselves are effectively shorting it by selling it unsecured by any real assets it would be a tough market to get in on.
I bookmarked this comment from a few months ago on how one might make such a trade: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26174690
Which is why I asked what they meant by failure specifically.
You have to borrow it to short it, so there's a 1-3% APY cost associated with shorting it. You have to calculate the tradeoff of the likelihood of it going to 0 within the next couple of years vs the cost of borrowing USDT to short it.
Say you short 1M$ worth of Tether, it goes belly up within 4 years, it cost you like ~40k$ to short it, but your upside is 1M$. If it never actually fails because the market is irrational or by some miracle Tether was doing the right thing, then your cost depends on when you close your position. It's a relatively cheap way of making lots of money depending on your conviction on Tether's likelihood to fail.
You have to borrow it to short it, so there's a 1-3% APY cost associated with shorting it. You have to calculate the tradeoff of the likelihood of it going to 0 within the next couple of years vs the cost of borrowing USDT to short it.
Say you short 1M$ worth of Tether, it goes belly up within 4 years, it cost you like ~40k$ to short it, but your upside is 1M$. If it never actually fails because the market is irrational or by some miracle Tether was doing the right thing, then your cost depends on when you close your position. It's a relatively cheap way of making lots of money depending on your conviction on Tether's likelihood to fail.
Nobody that's ripping on tether in here is going to short it lol, they're not that confident in their own words.
No kidding - each of the these crypto folks go "trust us" - and then even the simplest things (1:1 US Dollar backed coin - seriously - how hard is this!) turn out to be a full of crap and lies.
And if you believe USDT has been 1:1 backed by us dollars for its full history - dream on. If you believed they would actually get audited when they said they would - hahah.
And if you believe USDT has been 1:1 backed by us dollars for its full history - dream on. If you believed they would actually get audited when they said they would - hahah.
Your statement "how hard is this" shows your complete incompetence regarding the backing of anything.
Nothing of value is backed in our world. If a mere 7% of bank account holders go to the bank to collect their money, the bank collapses. They don't have your money, it's not there.
If all owners of gold (gold value papers) today claim their physical gold, it can't be done. There's 400% more value paper compared to the total supply above ground.
If all owners of Apple stock today decide to sell their stock all at the exact same moment, they won't get out the full market cap. Because the entire thing crashed before that. But that won't happen, because the exchange will simply stop the trade.
Which is the same thing crypto exchanges do when things get too heated.
Nothing of value is backed in our world. If a mere 7% of bank account holders go to the bank to collect their money, the bank collapses. They don't have your money, it's not there.
If all owners of gold (gold value papers) today claim their physical gold, it can't be done. There's 400% more value paper compared to the total supply above ground.
If all owners of Apple stock today decide to sell their stock all at the exact same moment, they won't get out the full market cap. Because the entire thing crashed before that. But that won't happen, because the exchange will simply stop the trade.
Which is the same thing crypto exchanges do when things get too heated.
The difference is that Apple doesn't claim to have a 1:1 reserve of dollars to back the value of their stock. It should matter to you that the USDT folks are lying (over something important).
We're in agreement that lying about backing is wrong in any case, no argument there.
I in particular object to the notion that things of value should be 100% backed by actual USD, in bank accounts or cash. That's not how liquidity works, yet a lot of people intuitively believe this to be so.
I in particular object to the notion that things of value should be 100% backed by actual USD, in bank accounts or cash. That's not how liquidity works, yet a lot of people intuitively believe this to be so.
They said it wasn't hard, not that it was necessary in all circumstances.
Banks and gold deposits re-lend money because it makes them money and they can sell the storage service for cheaper. If you want something that won't be loaned back out then you can buy that service pretty easily.
And stock prices changing is a very different thing. The actual supply is there, and entire markets caps can and do get sold in things like mergers.
Banks and gold deposits re-lend money because it makes them money and they can sell the storage service for cheaper. If you want something that won't be loaned back out then you can buy that service pretty easily.
And stock prices changing is a very different thing. The actual supply is there, and entire markets caps can and do get sold in things like mergers.
The supply of a stock in itself is meaningless, the only point of a stock is its USD value representation. In the case of a mass sell-off, sure, the same amount of stocks exist, but its monetary value sinks. Hence the market cap goes up in smoke.
This is also why a fraction of a market cap (say a few billion) can dramatically move a stock price of a 1 trillion market cap.
Same for Bitcoin. If its market price crashes, the same amount of Bitcoin exists. Yet this means nothing as only the BTCUSD pair is worth anything.
This is also why a fraction of a market cap (say a few billion) can dramatically move a stock price of a 1 trillion market cap.
Same for Bitcoin. If its market price crashes, the same amount of Bitcoin exists. Yet this means nothing as only the BTCUSD pair is worth anything.
I obviously understand this better than many of the experts then.
The buyer of all apple stock gets a claim to all apples future profits (and control of the corp). This happens regularly - all sellers selling when businesses are taken private. In general, this results in a premium to present value, not a discount. And even if the price went to zero, I still end up with this profit generating asset.
What crypto people don't understand is that the constant LYING (!) undermines their arguments.
We understand how banks work. FDIC insured to 250K, you can do an ICS or other accounts to spread your cash to get FDIC coverage for about $100M of your balance. For most folks that is plenty of cash insurance for funds if they need it. If not, buy 13 week t-bills.
What you totally fail to understand, is when someone says something is backed 1:1 by a related asset, then when someone buys item A, the issuer needs to be 1 unit of the related asset. This is not complicated math. This actually happens all the time in the real world. Even the title to my vehicle even is backed 1:1 by my vehicle.
Even your "successful" 1:1 backed crypto is likely anything but that, and yes - when the run starts, we will find out how bad it is.
The buyer of all apple stock gets a claim to all apples future profits (and control of the corp). This happens regularly - all sellers selling when businesses are taken private. In general, this results in a premium to present value, not a discount. And even if the price went to zero, I still end up with this profit generating asset.
What crypto people don't understand is that the constant LYING (!) undermines their arguments.
We understand how banks work. FDIC insured to 250K, you can do an ICS or other accounts to spread your cash to get FDIC coverage for about $100M of your balance. For most folks that is plenty of cash insurance for funds if they need it. If not, buy 13 week t-bills.
What you totally fail to understand, is when someone says something is backed 1:1 by a related asset, then when someone buys item A, the issuer needs to be 1 unit of the related asset. This is not complicated math. This actually happens all the time in the real world. Even the title to my vehicle even is backed 1:1 by my vehicle.
Even your "successful" 1:1 backed crypto is likely anything but that, and yes - when the run starts, we will find out how bad it is.
>Nothing of value is backed in our world. If a mere 7% of bank account holders go to the bank to collect their money, the bank collapses. They don't have your money, it's not there.
Considering negative interest rates in the Eurozone you would be doing the banks a favor. They don't want your deposits.
Considering negative interest rates in the Eurozone you would be doing the banks a favor. They don't want your deposits.
I know. I recently closed a secondary account there, had to do it in person. Their attitude was "good riddance", they truly do not want my money.
[deleted]
Seriously.
Meanwhile on boomer news
> A single web server caught fire somewhere in Bolivia, is social media over? (+20000 points)
Meanwhile on boomer news
> A single web server caught fire somewhere in Bolivia, is social media over? (+20000 points)
Don't get gaslit - this comment is on-point.
(Though I think it's obvious that USDT is a scam.)
(Though I think it's obvious that USDT is a scam.)
HN is a social news site subsidized by a company that incubates the latest technologies, including DeFi.
If there are any appropriate places on the internet for news about a new collapsed piece of DeFi tech, HN is unquestionably on that list.
If there are any appropriate places on the internet for news about a new collapsed piece of DeFi tech, HN is unquestionably on that list.
There are more than $100b of stablecoins — 285x year-over-year growth — with a variety of very interesting and high-quality stablecoins proliferating. And of course, Hacker News focuses on some garbage project nobody in the space even followed.
How is there no discussion about FRAX, Maker's DAI, USDC, CRV's 3pool token, Liquity's LUSD, and so many other interesting projects?
How is there no discussion about FRAX, Maker's DAI, USDC, CRV's 3pool token, Liquity's LUSD, and so many other interesting projects?
Because there's nothing interesting about them. They're just another variation on the same ol' "we peg our value to the dollar(*)!" pitch.
The interesting stuff happens when they fail.
The interesting stuff happens when they fail.
I couldn't disagree more. All of the projects I listed have radically different mechanisms, failure conditions, capital efficiencies, and value capture abilities. It's a fascinating space that is in its infancy.
And you're missing projects that aren't pegged to the dollar, but instead have dampened volatility floating price targets — like Reflexer and OlympusDAO.
It's a rich, beautiful corner of a rapidly growing space.
And you're missing projects that aren't pegged to the dollar, but instead have dampened volatility floating price targets — like Reflexer and OlympusDAO.
It's a rich, beautiful corner of a rapidly growing space.
> It's a rich, beautiful corner of a rapidly growing space.
I can't imagine what kind of mindset/value-system one has to have to find this stuff rich and beautiful. It's ponzis all the way down. I would call it disingenuous and grubby.
I can't imagine what kind of mindset/value-system one has to have to find this stuff rich and beautiful. It's ponzis all the way down. I would call it disingenuous and grubby.
If they have drunk the cool-aid instead of just selling it, then they really believe in the ecosystem with faith that is unshakeable. All Ponzi scheme needs some level of that faith, without that it hard to sell to somewhat knowledgeable audience.
Some of this tech sure eventually will become mainstream in a lot less glamorous and likely more centralized way than crypto enthusiasts like to think, current systems are not perfect certainly, they can leverage more tech, however they also have the benefit of evolving over a long period of time and have gone through the learning curve all the coin markets are going through.
Some of this tech sure eventually will become mainstream in a lot less glamorous and likely more centralized way than crypto enthusiasts like to think, current systems are not perfect certainly, they can leverage more tech, however they also have the benefit of evolving over a long period of time and have gone through the learning curve all the coin markets are going through.
It's a rapidly inflating bubble like NFTs and subprime mortgages.
What aspect of stablecoins makes them a bubble?
A rapidly rising market cap that depends on the expectation of continued growth of demand. Some stablecoins are more protected than others against drops in demand.
However, without a compete backing the the currency a stablecoin, there is a point at which sufficient supply of the stablecoin cannot destroyed and the peg will break as supply outstrips demand.
When the bubble pops there will be a lot of broken pegs but it most likey won't wipe out every stablecoin.
However, without a compete backing the the currency a stablecoin, there is a point at which sufficient supply of the stablecoin cannot destroyed and the peg will break as supply outstrips demand.
When the bubble pops there will be a lot of broken pegs but it most likey won't wipe out every stablecoin.
But that's not how the decentralized ones work. They aren't relying on "a rapidly rising market cap". Most of the stablecoins are backed by volatile assets (ETH, BTC, etc), but have automated systems to liquidate the collateral when price drops occur.
The only real problem would be a very large drop in a very short period of time, and the big stablecoins already have already survived 50% drops in pretty short time spans.
The only real problem would be a very large drop in a very short period of time, and the big stablecoins already have already survived 50% drops in pretty short time spans.
It only really works on good times (read low interest rates).
Good thing that the national debt is also out of control, which kind of restrict Fed's ability to raise interest rates without bankrupting the government.
Good thing that the national debt is also out of control, which kind of restrict Fed's ability to raise interest rates without bankrupting the government.
I'm confused. Why are low interest rates required for stablecoins to work? If anything, for centralized stablecoins, high interest rates would mean more revenue for the corporation holding the assets.
low interest rates means there are abundance of US dollars floating around for people to engage in things like stable coins.
high interest rates means less growth for any assets as liquidity gets tied/dries up.
Interest rates are cyclical, all high interest rates cause a period of pain and death for semi-ponzi schemes that works during periods of low interest rates.
high interest rates means less growth for any assets as liquidity gets tied/dries up.
Interest rates are cyclical, all high interest rates cause a period of pain and death for semi-ponzi schemes that works during periods of low interest rates.
Newsworthy would be more accurate description.
It is newsworthy when stuff blows up. Same reason SpaceX gets more coverage for its rocket development than say SLS or Blue Origin ( among other reasons). A lot of people watch car racing for the crashes. thats just human nature.
It is newsworthy when stuff blows up. Same reason SpaceX gets more coverage for its rocket development than say SLS or Blue Origin ( among other reasons). A lot of people watch car racing for the crashes. thats just human nature.
I think they way they peg their value to a dollar is interesting, because there are so many different strategies now.
Some are via reserve dollars, some via collateral based on an oracle, some via collateral not based on an oracle, some are tightly coupled, and some are a bit looser.
Some are via reserve dollars, some via collateral based on an oracle, some via collateral not based on an oracle, some are tightly coupled, and some are a bit looser.
They all do the same thing (peg to the dollar), but in different ways with different tradeoffs. That's the interesting part that you're completely missing.
Some are more centralized than others. Some rely on governance more than others. Some allow themselves to drift further from the peg than others. Some are more complex (and therefore more at risk of failure). There's actually quite a lot going on, and I personally find it pretty interesting, but yeah, at the surface, it's a bunch of coins that trade fairly close to $1.
Some are more centralized than others. Some rely on governance more than others. Some allow themselves to drift further from the peg than others. Some are more complex (and therefore more at risk of failure). There's actually quite a lot going on, and I personally find it pretty interesting, but yeah, at the surface, it's a bunch of coins that trade fairly close to $1.
You can be dismissive about literally anything that way. Computers: another variation on the same ol' "input in, output out" pitch.
You find stablecoin's failures interesting. Crypto enthusiasts (which admittedly are a tiny fraction of the people holding cryptocurrencies) do too, while at the same time finding the pegging mechanisms interesting as well
You find stablecoin's failures interesting. Crypto enthusiasts (which admittedly are a tiny fraction of the people holding cryptocurrencies) do too, while at the same time finding the pegging mechanisms interesting as well
I have to say, it seems to me that OP specifically started the list with two different, interesting, novel approaches that are not as you describe. It's as if the comment was designed to repel lazy, karma-farming comments like this one, and yet you still delivered one. Why?
What else can you suggest in order not to prompt this response?
What else can you suggest in order not to prompt this response?
The stablecoins that succeed aren't very interesting because they're simply blockchain representations of actual funds held elsewhere. Or at least funds that are claimed to be held somewhere. Those stablecoins are simply a redeemable, tradeable representation of money held somewhere else.
These artificial stablecoins that attempt to get clever with algorithmic finance and smart contracts are interesting because they inevitably collapse when someone pokes the system enough to make it unstable. The strangest part is how it happens over and over again yet people still put money into these flawed algorithmic stablecoins anyway.
These artificial stablecoins that attempt to get clever with algorithmic finance and smart contracts are interesting because they inevitably collapse when someone pokes the system enough to make it unstable. The strangest part is how it happens over and over again yet people still put money into these flawed algorithmic stablecoins anyway.
You say they are "simply" a representation of fiat money, basically a fiat mirror held in crypto, but they play an incredibly important role in the ecosystem:
- In some countries, swapping crypto to stablecoin (another crypto) has no tax implications whilst swapping to fiat does have consequences.
- For big account holders (not me), stablecoins are the only way to put gains on "dry land". If you win big on exchanges, you can't take it out at once, there's withdrawal limits. It can takes months to get it out, years if really rich. During all this time, your gain may finish if you'd hold it in the original coin, so stablecoins secure your profit in the meanwhile.
Fascinating? No, but definitely important.
- In some countries, swapping crypto to stablecoin (another crypto) has no tax implications whilst swapping to fiat does have consequences.
- For big account holders (not me), stablecoins are the only way to put gains on "dry land". If you win big on exchanges, you can't take it out at once, there's withdrawal limits. It can takes months to get it out, years if really rich. During all this time, your gain may finish if you'd hold it in the original coin, so stablecoins secure your profit in the meanwhile.
Fascinating? No, but definitely important.
Interesting there is this new series on Netflix, StartUp about this stuff. So the question really is "does it work?". Couldn't this be interesting for that it will force us to change the way we code? For sure the best paradigm will win over time. And the best coders. People are investing in the coders at this point like they do in a bank. Feels like this story isn't stopping anytime soon.
In general, everything in our society that can be turned into software code, will. Every company, every institute is a tech company, they just don't know it yet.
> The stablecoins that succeed aren't very interesting because they're simply blockchain representations of actual funds held elsewhere. Or at least funds that are claimed to be held somewhere.
DAI is not in this category. It is backed by over collateralized loans in multiple currencies, and maintains peg by creating and burning coins in a smart contract.
DAI is not in this category. It is backed by over collateralized loans in multiple currencies, and maintains peg by creating and burning coins in a smart contract.
Why is everyone talking about the condo that collapsed recently in Miami? There are so many condos still standing, but nobody cares!
There are larger, far more interesting collapses (and subsequent recoveries): Titan, Fei, Empty Set Dollar, and more.
Even going with your analogy, it makes no sense that this was #1 on HN. Unless it's also true that HN is just weirdly out of sync with crypto.
Even going with your analogy, it makes no sense that this was #1 on HN. Unless it's also true that HN is just weirdly out of sync with crypto.
This is such a weak(and frankly untimely) analogy, sorry.
The largest stablecoin by Market cap, Tether, has been discussed on here, quite a few times.
There probably have been previous discussions about those projects. But yeah, the project relating to this headline is not news worthy. It's HN; go figure.
I don't put money in gambling on assets underwritten by nothing. If I want a rush I'll buy AMC or something with real world value.
The hype drives the coins but the only people getting rich are those in early then motivated to tell people to buy. It's a decentralized pyramid scheme and even those work some of the time.
The hype drives the coins but the only people getting rich are those in early then motivated to tell people to buy. It's a decentralized pyramid scheme and even those work some of the time.
> high-quality stablecoins
Until the next financial crisis maybe?
Until the next financial crisis maybe?
I honestly don't understand why this coin even makes the news. At $250K it was less than a microcap penny token. It's insignificant and not worth a print.
Because this is the kind of story that cryptocurrency detractors love, and that aligns with the general sentiment towards cryptocurrencies on HN.
Odd: HN is made up of the people closest to cutting-edge technology on the planet, and yet sentiment is negative on cryptocurrency. Hmmm...
It's odd indeed. This is a VC-created forum where its users reject entire sectors of new technology. Besides being anti-crypto, there also anti-google, anti-iot, and anti-any website looking fancier than something from 1996.
It's a thing to accept and be entertained by I guess. The stunning lack of self awareness over here is legendary though.
It's a thing to accept and be entertained by I guess. The stunning lack of self awareness over here is legendary though.
Let's see:
- Google: monopolistic tendencies, decline of their search engine, copyright troubles for youtubers, overall bad execution with their projects recently.
- iot: really bad security and privacy, otherwise it would be neat.
- modern websites: gauntlet of cookie banners and modals, ads and surveillance are criticized, page weight often silly, but the capabilities of modern websites are generally appreciated here.
- crypto: enables ransomware and other crime, insane energy use, bad track record of ponzi schemes and hacked services, speculation vehicle with few winners, not generally used/usable for real payments; blockchain-based services not feasible (oracle problem, if possible then killer apps would have appeared, a Hello World program requires mining and melts your CPU, etc.)
Did I sum up HN's sentiment correctly? Could you point out where the lack of self awareness lies?
- Google: monopolistic tendencies, decline of their search engine, copyright troubles for youtubers, overall bad execution with their projects recently.
- iot: really bad security and privacy, otherwise it would be neat.
- modern websites: gauntlet of cookie banners and modals, ads and surveillance are criticized, page weight often silly, but the capabilities of modern websites are generally appreciated here.
- crypto: enables ransomware and other crime, insane energy use, bad track record of ponzi schemes and hacked services, speculation vehicle with few winners, not generally used/usable for real payments; blockchain-based services not feasible (oracle problem, if possible then killer apps would have appeared, a Hello World program requires mining and melts your CPU, etc.)
Did I sum up HN's sentiment correctly? Could you point out where the lack of self awareness lies?
Yes, I could. You just did it, as did the 3 other replies. You double down and confirm my point.
Like I said, I see the humor in it. It's culture. Every forum has a culture. That's why you came to the defense, even in absence of an attack.
I know I won't change that, but I do want to explain my counter point by means of an example.
You have absolutely no idea how deeply I hate Google. I could write books full of it. Yet I will still not fall in the trap of an absolute closed mind or simplistic binary rejection.
Same for crypto and for anything large and impactful. It's a hard thing to do these days, to be a technologist for technology sake, and to cleanly separate it from the maker's reputation, personal politics, and so on. Very few things in life can be sorted into good or bad.
So when you have topics that are close to taboo, yes, I do think that's odd.
Like I said, I see the humor in it. It's culture. Every forum has a culture. That's why you came to the defense, even in absence of an attack.
I know I won't change that, but I do want to explain my counter point by means of an example.
You have absolutely no idea how deeply I hate Google. I could write books full of it. Yet I will still not fall in the trap of an absolute closed mind or simplistic binary rejection.
Same for crypto and for anything large and impactful. It's a hard thing to do these days, to be a technologist for technology sake, and to cleanly separate it from the maker's reputation, personal politics, and so on. Very few things in life can be sorted into good or bad.
So when you have topics that are close to taboo, yes, I do think that's odd.
Shrug it's happening throughout technical circles, at least in the English-speaking world. It's one thing to try to push back against politics that you feel are harmful and disenfranchising, in purely political or social forums. It's another when technology forums develop taboos on what technology you can and cannot discuss. I agree it's cultural, but folks who are immersed in the culture don't seem to be willing to call it that. I'm really looking forward for this to be "over" so that the internet can have nuanced discussions about technology again.
I know what you mean. I suppressed that reasoning in my other comments as it tends to make things worse, but I might as well spit it out: it's US culture.
The US has always had a binary culture: winner/loser. Democrats vs Republicans. Success or failure. No room for nuance or a gray zone.
Nothing new, but now brought to truly explosive levels of polarization. We all know why.
This mentality has now made its way into everything. As an example, a lot of people, in this example non-tech people, instinctively reject crypto purely based on the narrative presented to them by the media they follow (which fits their world view) and their Twitter friends.
These people haven't spent a minute even trying to understand what it is, yet blindly follow an ever-narrowing behavioral group consensus.
Don't get me wrong, you may very well come to the conclusion that crypto is garbage, but wouldn't you first want to learn about it before you flat out reject it?
Another example is web development, in particular the community on Twitter. It's basically a radical feminist community now. Recently, a high profile account blasted the life's work of some guy. The guy responds that this pile-on ruined his day. The response: an army of angry women complaining about his "white tech bro" behavior. He was close to losing its job (and reputation) for pointing out that he did not appreciate the out-of-the-blue mass pile-on.
Does any of this sound reasonable, healthy, constructive?
Dismissing vastly complex topics without knowing a thing about it? Basing good or bad on group think, and rejecting everything else? Basing who is right or wrong based on ethnicity, gender, the like?
How very limiting life must be to look at the world through this lens. It has like 90% of pixels blacked out.
That's what I mean with the lack of self awareness. US people don't even see this anymore. It's normalized. When you point out they have a closed mind and binary world view, they make effort to show they're on the right side of that binary, failing to see the irony.
The US has always had a binary culture: winner/loser. Democrats vs Republicans. Success or failure. No room for nuance or a gray zone.
Nothing new, but now brought to truly explosive levels of polarization. We all know why.
This mentality has now made its way into everything. As an example, a lot of people, in this example non-tech people, instinctively reject crypto purely based on the narrative presented to them by the media they follow (which fits their world view) and their Twitter friends.
These people haven't spent a minute even trying to understand what it is, yet blindly follow an ever-narrowing behavioral group consensus.
Don't get me wrong, you may very well come to the conclusion that crypto is garbage, but wouldn't you first want to learn about it before you flat out reject it?
Another example is web development, in particular the community on Twitter. It's basically a radical feminist community now. Recently, a high profile account blasted the life's work of some guy. The guy responds that this pile-on ruined his day. The response: an army of angry women complaining about his "white tech bro" behavior. He was close to losing its job (and reputation) for pointing out that he did not appreciate the out-of-the-blue mass pile-on.
Does any of this sound reasonable, healthy, constructive?
Dismissing vastly complex topics without knowing a thing about it? Basing good or bad on group think, and rejecting everything else? Basing who is right or wrong based on ethnicity, gender, the like?
How very limiting life must be to look at the world through this lens. It has like 90% of pixels blacked out.
That's what I mean with the lack of self awareness. US people don't even see this anymore. It's normalized. When you point out they have a closed mind and binary world view, they make effort to show they're on the right side of that binary, failing to see the irony.
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I tried to present the arguments around here in a nuanced way. I don't think that there is much of a closed mind or a simplistic binary rejection, or a taboo, on technical topics here on HN.
The onus is on crypto boosters (who are usually invested and would benefit from more hype) to present better arguments and demonstrate the general benefit/feasability of crypto.
The onus is on crypto boosters (who are usually invested and would benefit from more hype) to present better arguments and demonstrate the general benefit/feasability of crypto.
You don't think there's a closed mind because you're never on that other side. So you likely never experience it.
Yes, there are self-serving crypto maximalists. But even if you add nuance, you get downvoted and standard replies debunked years ago. Doesn't matter what you say, the arguments aren't even heard.
That's absolute closed mindedness. And the quality of many of those replies shows how extremely little those people know about it at all.
A massive problem? No. But I'm just telling you it does exist.
Yes, there are self-serving crypto maximalists. But even if you add nuance, you get downvoted and standard replies debunked years ago. Doesn't matter what you say, the arguments aren't even heard.
That's absolute closed mindedness. And the quality of many of those replies shows how extremely little those people know about it at all.
A massive problem? No. But I'm just telling you it does exist.
On another perspective, maybe HN is anti-scams, pro privacy, pro privacy and pro UX.
No other discussions face such criticism, only crypto. Does everyone believe them with a burning passion? Or are people afraid of losing money?
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
No other discussions face such criticism, only crypto. Does everyone believe them with a burning passion? Or are people afraid of losing money?
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
> The stunning lack of self awareness over here is legendary though.
Yes, indeed.
Yes, indeed.
Cutting edge black market currencies? Most people aren't interested in that.
People come with their Argentina and Venezuela inflation and capital control stories and I fully agree with them but it feels like that is in no way justifying the hype around cryptocurrencies. Average people just want the MLM fueled number go up speculation and that is about it.
People come with their Argentina and Venezuela inflation and capital control stories and I fully agree with them but it feels like that is in no way justifying the hype around cryptocurrencies. Average people just want the MLM fueled number go up speculation and that is about it.
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It's because so far all of these crypto currencies use terrible technology that is destroying the planet. There's nothing "cutting-edge" about block chain, it was a neat idea 12 years ago but since then it's proven itself to be a completely shit database.
Well, IMO, that's not entirely true. The idea of a hash-based unalterable ledger is still unique (what's a comparable strategy?), but is still finding its footing. I think a blockchain has applications, and maybe cryptocurrency will be one, but this is all in its infancy. Applications are still being considered, and implementors are learning that hard way that the intersection of monetary systems, economic feasibility, and security is nontrivial and some brogrammer can't just knock out a coin in a weekend and have it be meaningful. I think it will take at least another few decades for a real cryptocurrency to emerge (if one ever does) and even then it will probably be small-scale (bank interchange?) or for some other application and not a global consumer thing. It just has too many issues that no one has figured out yet (transparancy, insurability, privacy, energy cost, scalability, transactional cost, etc.)
Despite the low liquidity on the exchange, the market cap of the token was supposedly $250M: https://twitter.com/Mudit__Gupta/status/1409463917290557440?...
How did they have a marketcap of $250M as a stablecoin when they had 1000x less in reserves?
Because market cap is nonsense, if I create FooCoin with 1,000,000 tokens and sell one for $250, it has a market cap of $250M despite only ever having $250 in real money involved.
I know market cap isn’t sensible for coins with varying values, but for stablecoins equal to $1 market cap is supposed to be the number of tokens in circulation and therefore should be close to reserves.
Number of reserves is its own issue but only having 0.1% reserves is miniscule.
Number of reserves is its own issue but only having 0.1% reserves is miniscule.
Sounds like a statistical fluke to me (or some kind of market cap manipulation scheme). This token was not that liquid and not that widespread at all. I never heard of this token until today and I spend several hours a day on crypto.
That was the exploit. 248 million tokens were minted on $250k collateral.
that was a typo, it's 250k.
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No kidding. Losing $250k on a bug would, relatively speaking, be a good day at my company.
There are NFT that are worth more than $250k.
There is no such thing as a stablecoin, it's a made up term to try to lend legitimacy to new crypto scams. And I say this as someone who just bought some Ethereum in the hopes of making a profit :)
Maybe the world just needs less people trying to get something for nothing. If the scammers operating these currencies teach the greedy traders a lesson we'll all be better off.
It won't work, the lessons won't be learned.
Within the larger space of crypto are the "degenerates" and "ape investors". That's what they call themselves. They're fully self-aware of their unhinged choices and behavior. They embrace it and laugh at it.
This is important to understand. They aren't uninformed or gullible. They know they're crossing a field of land mines and decide to go for it anyway.
Within the larger space of crypto are the "degenerates" and "ape investors". That's what they call themselves. They're fully self-aware of their unhinged choices and behavior. They embrace it and laugh at it.
This is important to understand. They aren't uninformed or gullible. They know they're crossing a field of land mines and decide to go for it anyway.
Agreed.
I'd like to figure out how to build a cryptocurrency that is useful for conducting actual business but toxic to investors.
An economy that lacked parasitic middle men would be a good thing for the status quo to have to compete with.
I'd like to figure out how to build a cryptocurrency that is useful for conducting actual business but toxic to investors.
An economy that lacked parasitic middle men would be a good thing for the status quo to have to compete with.
>> I'd like to figure out how to build a cryptocurrency that is useful for conducting actual business but toxic to investors.
Yes, perhaps a currency that you could trade quickly and cheaply all over the world, with 2-3% reduction in its purchasing power each year so that no one has a reason to hoard it or speculate. I wish we had the technology to create such a currency./s
Yes, perhaps a currency that you could trade quickly and cheaply all over the world, with 2-3% reduction in its purchasing power each year so that no one has a reason to hoard it or speculate. I wish we had the technology to create such a currency./s
We lose a lot more than 2% each year to wasteful policies designed to ensure that investors get their returns.
Downtown there are hungry people, downstream there are thirsty people, and yet my HOA won't let me stop watering my lawn, nor will they let me replace the grass with something edible.
And if you won't accept food and drink as part of that 2%, consider the more measurable economic costs of the climate of of unrest that these practices create.
Downtown there are hungry people, downstream there are thirsty people, and yet my HOA won't let me stop watering my lawn, nor will they let me replace the grass with something edible.
And if you won't accept food and drink as part of that 2%, consider the more measurable economic costs of the climate of of unrest that these practices create.
Every day the largest wallet is confiscated, divided into ten equal portions, and each piece is randomly awarded, lottery-style, with every transaction from the previous day serving as a lottery ticket.
I dunno, it's not about wealth concentration, be rich, that's fine. It's about whether your wealth was gathered by contributing useful work, or by parasitizing it.
I imagine a proof of work system where there's a community work queue, and "mining" is completing tasks in the queue, borderlands-style (though hopefully without the violence). The mined tokens can be resolved to nft's which stay attached to the wallet of the user who requested that the work be done.
There's also a web of trust and a UBI component (Circles-UBI style) to disinventivise sybil accounts.
If the work-originator deems the work unsatisfactory, they can invalidate the tokens that were mined from its "completion" and recoup a fraction of what they paid to have it done.
So doing business with somebody who has a reputation of doing shoddy work, or of failing to respect good work, is risky because your tokens might evaporate.
An would-be investor in this token would have to decide whose tokens to buy, which requires much more research.
You could also have some system to disinventivise hoarding, like a token half-life.
Or you know, something like that.
I imagine a proof of work system where there's a community work queue, and "mining" is completing tasks in the queue, borderlands-style (though hopefully without the violence). The mined tokens can be resolved to nft's which stay attached to the wallet of the user who requested that the work be done.
There's also a web of trust and a UBI component (Circles-UBI style) to disinventivise sybil accounts.
If the work-originator deems the work unsatisfactory, they can invalidate the tokens that were mined from its "completion" and recoup a fraction of what they paid to have it done.
So doing business with somebody who has a reputation of doing shoddy work, or of failing to respect good work, is risky because your tokens might evaporate.
An would-be investor in this token would have to decide whose tokens to buy, which requires much more research.
You could also have some system to disinventivise hoarding, like a token half-life.
Or you know, something like that.
The difficulty is that once you move from things like my joke solution to earnest attempts like yours you start involving the real world in your model, and you end up with something that is more like a social solution than a technological one.
Once you start talking social solutions you start looking more like a business or a commune or a community and less like a technology. You don't just have algorithms and widgets and cryptographic hashes, you have people who are supposed to execute fuzzy decision making processes like authenticating that someone "did good work", and then you need validation protocols to check whether people are executing their human-algorithms correctly, and identity and spam systems to ensure that someone isn't running a bot-net that simulates a town of people pretending to do useful work...
Which in addition to making everything way more complicated, makes you step back and say, "Wait, what am I trying to accomplish here by creating a cryptocurrency which is a currency and not a speculation-vehicle again? And why am I trying to do it by creating a cryptocurrency again?"
Once you start talking social solutions you start looking more like a business or a commune or a community and less like a technology. You don't just have algorithms and widgets and cryptographic hashes, you have people who are supposed to execute fuzzy decision making processes like authenticating that someone "did good work", and then you need validation protocols to check whether people are executing their human-algorithms correctly, and identity and spam systems to ensure that someone isn't running a bot-net that simulates a town of people pretending to do useful work...
Which in addition to making everything way more complicated, makes you step back and say, "Wait, what am I trying to accomplish here by creating a cryptocurrency which is a currency and not a speculation-vehicle again? And why am I trying to do it by creating a cryptocurrency again?"
To be fair there is some residual demand for a sort of "law of physics" namely a basic mechanism that forcibly applies to everyone. We use paper notes to signify that we owe the holder of the paper note work. The paper note follows the law of physics in the sense that it is a physical object that can be transferred from person to person.
The issuance of paper notes is still a social problem but the act of exchanging them at a shop is not.
The issuance of paper notes is still a social problem but the act of exchanging them at a shop is not.
Oh yeah, it gets messier for sure, and I think that providing the protocols is probably the smaller part of it. Teaching people to use them is probably harder. But the benefits of taking on those challenges strike me as too big to ignore.
As for the botnet thing, I really like how CirclesUBI handles it. "Trust" is a pact to treat tokens minted for the other party as indistinguishable from tokens minted for yourself. So by all means, go simulate a small town doing "useful" work. Nobody is going to value the fruits of that labor unless they've seen them, and so your tokens will be worthless.
Once you have the base web of trust set up, you can layer other types of trust on top of it, like returns-borrowed-tools-undamaged trust and other things that lower the cost of doing business.
It's about using technology to take things that already work (cooperation) and make them work at scale (1000 people instead of 10). No need for global consistency, the resources are all local anyway.
As for being called a commune, that's fine. Communism allegedly doesn't work, so the idea that people might be doing this in tandem with traditional economics ought to be considered "not-a-threat" except in cases where traditional economics produces exceptionally troublesome outcomes.
As for the botnet thing, I really like how CirclesUBI handles it. "Trust" is a pact to treat tokens minted for the other party as indistinguishable from tokens minted for yourself. So by all means, go simulate a small town doing "useful" work. Nobody is going to value the fruits of that labor unless they've seen them, and so your tokens will be worthless.
Once you have the base web of trust set up, you can layer other types of trust on top of it, like returns-borrowed-tools-undamaged trust and other things that lower the cost of doing business.
It's about using technology to take things that already work (cooperation) and make them work at scale (1000 people instead of 10). No need for global consistency, the resources are all local anyway.
As for being called a commune, that's fine. Communism allegedly doesn't work, so the idea that people might be doing this in tandem with traditional economics ought to be considered "not-a-threat" except in cases where traditional economics produces exceptionally troublesome outcomes.
Ironically that's not far from what SafeMoon purported to be. But people would "invest" in it as a form of a lottery.
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WORD!
I think that's just human nature.
This is uninformed. What do you call USDC, which is directly redeemable for US Dollars by anyone with a Coinbase account? Every USDC is backed by one USD of deposits in a US-based bank.
USDC is a stablecoin, and there are plenty of others out there.
USDC is a stablecoin, and there are plenty of others out there.
*redeemable with permission from Coinbase and provided they follow through on their promises of 1-1 backing
You can get Circle to give you USD for USDC? How?
Are you talking about selling USDC to another baghholder? Thats not 'redeeming' that's trading.
Are you talking about selling USDC to another baghholder? Thats not 'redeeming' that's trading.
Yes, Circle or Coinbase will redeem them for you. Similarly you can close a position on DAI and burn the tokens.
A stablecoin that hasn’t lost its peg yet.
redeemable until it's not.
But given the monthly audits conducted, "it's not" is not very likely to happen at all. The auditor would have to be actively lying or misrepresenting for USDC and Gemini both for something like that to happen.
Much more likely a smart contract somewhere fails than USDC/Gemini (the only two I know that do full audits to ensure 1:1 dollar backing, ignoring USDT). There just isn't much risk there, hence there not being much (any) profit trading stablecoin.
Much more likely a smart contract somewhere fails than USDC/Gemini (the only two I know that do full audits to ensure 1:1 dollar backing, ignoring USDT). There just isn't much risk there, hence there not being much (any) profit trading stablecoin.
> But given the monthly audits conducted, "it's not" is not very likely to happen at all. The auditor would have to be actively lying or misrepresenting for USDC and Gemini both for something like that to happen.
USDC has regular attestations, not audits. It's an important distinction.
USDC has regular attestations, not audits. It's an important distinction.
Would an audit even make sense here? Based on some Googling, I found this as an explanation for the difference:
> One of the things to keep in mind to differentiate each of these services is that audits are performed to discover data, risks, or compliance issues that may not have been known before the audit took place, and attestation is to evaluate and review how true the data or information is when compared to a stated purpose, internal control or system. [0]
Based on that reading, it sounds like an audit wouldn't make sense here, since we're not trying to discover anything new, just asserting a statement to be true.
> One of the things to keep in mind to differentiate each of these services is that audits are performed to discover data, risks, or compliance issues that may not have been known before the audit took place, and attestation is to evaluate and review how true the data or information is when compared to a stated purpose, internal control or system. [0]
Based on that reading, it sounds like an audit wouldn't make sense here, since we're not trying to discover anything new, just asserting a statement to be true.
[0] - https://www.ispartnersllc.com/blog/defining-attestation-assurance-auditing/There are no monthly audits. They have "attestations" which are not the same thing.
what happens if gemini goes belly up like mtgox? are the assets backing the peg isolated from bankruptcy event?
Currency pegging isn't a new thing. For instance, the ratio of Belizian dollars to US dollars is defined as 2:1.
That peg could certainly fail, and you could certainly argue that there's something not quite right about the practice, but it was made up to legitimize tokens long before crypto.
That peg could certainly fail, and you could certainly argue that there's something not quite right about the practice, but it was made up to legitimize tokens long before crypto.
Isn't the whole value of your ethereum based on people using it for these kinds of scam projects?
Absolutely.
MakerDAO is not a scam, and the dollar peg survived the last crypto crash so it's pretty "stable".
They had to create USDC to keep it pegged during the crash before that, though. So actually it's USDC that's stable, that makes Maker stable.
Who is "they"? Maker has nothing to do with USDC. USDC is a Coinbase product.
Your seem uninformed. Dai is backed by USDC.
Last I heard, Dai was backed over-collateralized crypto, like ETH. Even Coinbase says so:
> Unlike centralized stablecoins, DAI isn't backed by US dollars in a bank account. Instead, it’s backed by collateral on the Maker platform.
https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/trading-and-funding/cr...
> Unlike centralized stablecoins, DAI isn't backed by US dollars in a bank account. Instead, it’s backed by collateral on the Maker platform.
https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/trading-and-funding/cr...
You should take a look at the breakdown... USDC is such a large portion of Dai backing (62%) that it's deemed an existential risk. They're working on reducing the reliance though with more stablecoins and more collateral classes.
https://share.streamlit.io/tadzz/maker_dai_collateralization...
https://share.streamlit.io/tadzz/maker_dai_collateralization...
The comment I replied to implied that Maker and USDC are connected beyond USDC being one of many collateral currencies for DAO, which I don't believe is the case, but feel free to correct me if I'm indeed uninformed.
edit: From someone above https://share.streamlit.io/tadzz/maker_dai_collateralization...
Each DAI is over collateralized, and backed by more ETH than USDC.
edit: From someone above https://share.streamlit.io/tadzz/maker_dai_collateralization...
Each DAI is over collateralized, and backed by more ETH than USDC.
Maybe stablecoins are just digital currencies with binary exchange rates. It seems to me that when you declare a digital coin exactly tracks the value of the dollar, you basically are not allowing its dollar exchange rate to have any values except 1 and 0. It makes sense that when the value of this coin couldn’t possibly remain at 1 it by necessity had to toggle over to 0.
All terms are made up by your definition.
Sure, that's true although it's just semantics. I'll be unreasonably specific then: the term stablecoin was made up with harmful intentions to deceive and mislead in order to make a profit off others' losses.
I'm not sure I agree, but it will be hard to convince you if you're coming from a place where you think crypto is scammy/deceptive to begin with. Let me assume you're willing to suspend your disbelief:
I do agree that some stablecoins are scammy in nature, but others serve an important purpose and that purpose is to allow individuals and enterprises to navigate doing business in crypto despite crypto's high volatility. Where is the deception in that?
I do agree that some stablecoins are scammy in nature, but others serve an important purpose and that purpose is to allow individuals and enterprises to navigate doing business in crypto despite crypto's high volatility. Where is the deception in that?
If I create a USD-stablecoin with a supply of $1 backed by my $1 in US bonds, is that legit?
But nobody in crypto would willingly trade their crypto for something backed by fiat and therefore inflating. Right?
Wrong. Unlike bank deposits or treasury notes, stable coins have interest yields to outweigh inflation.
I guess as far as counterparties go, people trust a bank or the fed more.
There is no counterparty risk in a smart contract involving only digital assets. There is systemic risk, however.
A point that most crypto heads miss is that the world does not run algorithmically. Legal contracts do not work like a software program and that characteristic is a feature not a bug. Not being able to reverse transactions that were part of an exploit is in infact a bug. Businesses need that tolerance for error. You need an oracle in your system. The oracle can maintain transparency of the attestations carried out if that is what matters.
An extreme anti-establishment view is driving most crypto enthusiasts into opting for tech that isn't going to remain in everyone's interest for too long. These lessons started with DAO.
An extreme anti-establishment view is driving most crypto enthusiasts into opting for tech that isn't going to remain in everyone's interest for too long. These lessons started with DAO.
I'm gonna be honest I don't know what the audience is for a product where you risk losing your entire life savings because you typed a wrong word in a smart contract rather than paying a middleman a fraction of a percent.
It's almost like a sort of willful ignorance of division of labour and the concept of pooling risk.
It's almost like a sort of willful ignorance of division of labour and the concept of pooling risk.
Doing illegal things, mostly.
If you are working a w2 job and paying taxes and paying your mortgage / auto loan... crypto doesn't really help you.
Blackmail? Awesome. Buying illegal substances? Awesome. Gambling? You got it...
If you are working a w2 job and paying taxes and paying your mortgage / auto loan... crypto doesn't really help you.
Blackmail? Awesome. Buying illegal substances? Awesome. Gambling? You got it...
I’m making an assumption here that “crypto” means “crypto coin” and, perhaps further, any form of blockchain based, consensus maintained, public ledger.
I don’t understand this “crypto is good for doing crime” narrative.
When I’m doing crime, I strongly prefer there to be no record of the transaction. The closer I can get to an assurance there is no permanent record of the transaction, the safer I feel in deviating from the law.
Conducting any illegal business in a permanent public ledger is a non-starter for me. Even with a public ledger that ”guarantees” privacy, I’m staking my freedom on the underlying cryptography not being broken before the statute of limitations for my crime passes.
I’d go as far as reversing this narrative. Crime moving to a permanent public ledger strikes me as any regulating body’s dream.
I don’t understand this “crypto is good for doing crime” narrative.
When I’m doing crime, I strongly prefer there to be no record of the transaction. The closer I can get to an assurance there is no permanent record of the transaction, the safer I feel in deviating from the law.
Conducting any illegal business in a permanent public ledger is a non-starter for me. Even with a public ledger that ”guarantees” privacy, I’m staking my freedom on the underlying cryptography not being broken before the statute of limitations for my crime passes.
I’d go as far as reversing this narrative. Crime moving to a permanent public ledger strikes me as any regulating body’s dream.
Those considerations notwithstanding, people are actually using crypto for criminal behavior. However great your arguments are against it, the reality is that it's happening.
Reasons it might be happening: You can say they're being shortsighted and taking on unnecessary risk, but then, people who make criminal livings tend to have a higher appetite for risk than e.g. I do.
Reasons it might be happening: You can say they're being shortsighted and taking on unnecessary risk, but then, people who make criminal livings tend to have a higher appetite for risk than e.g. I do.
> I strongly prefer there to be no record of the transaction.
Other than cash, this isn't viable. You'll have to launder your money no matter what, at some point. Crypto just makes transferring trivial, it's less regulated, you can't go to your bank and ask them for help, etc. It's good for criminals for these reasons.
There's radically more infrastructure for this sort of thing in existing systems. Crypto is far less regulated, you can transfer across countries easily, laundering becomes trivial, transfers via hacked accounts, etc.
Other than cash, this isn't viable. You'll have to launder your money no matter what, at some point. Crypto just makes transferring trivial, it's less regulated, you can't go to your bank and ask them for help, etc. It's good for criminals for these reasons.
There's radically more infrastructure for this sort of thing in existing systems. Crypto is far less regulated, you can transfer across countries easily, laundering becomes trivial, transfers via hacked accounts, etc.
This just isn't correct. Public ledger cryptocurrencies are able to be digitally transferred without any form of personal identification, unlike almost any other form of payment. Just because the ledger is public does not mean that one's identity is public, merely the addresses involved in the transaction are public. If there is nothing tying one's identity to an address or transaction, then the transaction being public is meaningless.
Further, this point is completely nullified by the fact that there are private ledger cryptocurrencies (e.g. Monero). Widely available public cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are useful for crime because they're (relatively) easily understandable, usable, and purchasable by laypeople. This results in a process that goes as such:
> Customer wants illicit good
> Customer goes on coin brokerage and buys Bitcoin
> Customer sends Bitcoin to illicit goods dealer in exchange for goods/services
> Dealer exchanges Bitcoin for Monero
> Dealer now has "clean" currency that could be used for anonymous cash drops, speculation, or even withdrawal from a public marketplace.
There are at least hundreds of people operating in the many millions of revenue using this model (with some additional safeguards) that have been successful for years and years. You are correct in saying that you are staking your freedom on the safety of something such as Monero, although you are free to analyze its safety and determine whether or not it is suitable for your threat model.
Further, this point is completely nullified by the fact that there are private ledger cryptocurrencies (e.g. Monero). Widely available public cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are useful for crime because they're (relatively) easily understandable, usable, and purchasable by laypeople. This results in a process that goes as such:
> Customer wants illicit good
> Customer goes on coin brokerage and buys Bitcoin
> Customer sends Bitcoin to illicit goods dealer in exchange for goods/services
> Dealer exchanges Bitcoin for Monero
> Dealer now has "clean" currency that could be used for anonymous cash drops, speculation, or even withdrawal from a public marketplace.
There are at least hundreds of people operating in the many millions of revenue using this model (with some additional safeguards) that have been successful for years and years. You are correct in saying that you are staking your freedom on the safety of something such as Monero, although you are free to analyze its safety and determine whether or not it is suitable for your threat model.
I agree with you. But I think there is nuance. When I hear “crypto is good for crime” I hear “crypto is good for all criminals” (where “criminal” is anyone conducting an illegal $$ transaction).
In your process, my statement was 100% talking about the “customer” steps. You’re right. But, at scale, it’s hard to conduct any crime that doesn’t leave a record. At the many millions of dollars of revenue scale, I could see crypto being a trade-off conversation.
> Public ledger cryptocurrencies are able to be digitally transferred without any form of personal identification, unlike almost any other form of payment.
Absolutely correct. But for any crime I’d likely commit, I’d be operating at a scale where anonymity would be hard to achieve. For example, I’d be hard pressed to acquire Bitcoin in a way that didn’t associate the wallet with my identity (if you have methods, please share!). For most transactional crimes I’d likely commit, I’d substitute “show up with cash for crime” with “show up with cash for Bitcoin, then use Bitcoin for crime.” It seems like an extra, unnecessary, step. Cash is already a record-less value transfer system.
> Further, this point is completely nullified by the fact that there are private ledger cryptocurrencies
I’m not sure if we are arguing semantics on this one. But my understanding of tech like Monero and ZK-snarks is that the ledger IS public, but it’s a bunch of locked boxes. Without the keys you can’t see the contents of the ledger. But now you’re in a race against time between implementation bugs (or broken crypto) and the statute of limitations. It’s not enough to audit it yourself. You’re not betting that _you_ couldn’t break it _today_, but that _no one_ will _ever_ break it. The incentive model seems broken. My crime may not be of interest, but I’m committing the transaction to the same ledger where nation states may have interest in decrypting other transactions. I can’t “uncommit” my transaction if the crypto falls to a nation state; my private business becoming public will just be collateral damage.
At a small scale, I’d much prefer taking a one time risk of conducting a no name cash transaction.
In your process, my statement was 100% talking about the “customer” steps. You’re right. But, at scale, it’s hard to conduct any crime that doesn’t leave a record. At the many millions of dollars of revenue scale, I could see crypto being a trade-off conversation.
> Public ledger cryptocurrencies are able to be digitally transferred without any form of personal identification, unlike almost any other form of payment.
Absolutely correct. But for any crime I’d likely commit, I’d be operating at a scale where anonymity would be hard to achieve. For example, I’d be hard pressed to acquire Bitcoin in a way that didn’t associate the wallet with my identity (if you have methods, please share!). For most transactional crimes I’d likely commit, I’d substitute “show up with cash for crime” with “show up with cash for Bitcoin, then use Bitcoin for crime.” It seems like an extra, unnecessary, step. Cash is already a record-less value transfer system.
> Further, this point is completely nullified by the fact that there are private ledger cryptocurrencies
I’m not sure if we are arguing semantics on this one. But my understanding of tech like Monero and ZK-snarks is that the ledger IS public, but it’s a bunch of locked boxes. Without the keys you can’t see the contents of the ledger. But now you’re in a race against time between implementation bugs (or broken crypto) and the statute of limitations. It’s not enough to audit it yourself. You’re not betting that _you_ couldn’t break it _today_, but that _no one_ will _ever_ break it. The incentive model seems broken. My crime may not be of interest, but I’m committing the transaction to the same ledger where nation states may have interest in decrypting other transactions. I can’t “uncommit” my transaction if the crypto falls to a nation state; my private business becoming public will just be collateral damage.
At a small scale, I’d much prefer taking a one time risk of conducting a no name cash transaction.
Hiya, sorry for a little bit of a late response!
I think there are a couple fundamental misunderstandings here regarding cash. Answering this question may fix that a little bit:
> I’d be hard pressed to acquire Bitcoin in a way that didn’t associate the wallet with my identity (if you have methods, please share!)
If one purchases BTC on Coinbase, trades it for XMR, and then trades the XMR for BTC back to a separate BTC wallet, it is currently unfeasible to determine that the final BTC is linked to the initial BTC. Also, cash is not completely private- bills have serial numbers that are tracked in a similar way as to how one might track Bitcoin (unless you're dealing solely in coins). BTC and XMR are both able to be cashed out fairly easily as well. They could be legally sold, given that they're functionally untraceable. You can also fairly easily coordinate cash overnighted to a PO box set up with a fake identity.
Re: Private ledger cryptocurrencies
With Monero (for example), the sender, receiver, and transaction amount are all private. The quality of Monero's privacy is up for debate, but I see no reason why explicitly tracked cash bills are more secure than a private ledger cryptocurrency.
In conclusion, within the initial context of, "When I’m doing crime, I strongly prefer there to be no record of the transaction", I don't believe that there is an opsec-based reason for you to choose cash over cryptocurrencies. There is always going to be a risk when committing crimes- that is unavoidable. Maybe this is a big point for dealing in gold, haha?
I think there are a couple fundamental misunderstandings here regarding cash. Answering this question may fix that a little bit:
> I’d be hard pressed to acquire Bitcoin in a way that didn’t associate the wallet with my identity (if you have methods, please share!)
If one purchases BTC on Coinbase, trades it for XMR, and then trades the XMR for BTC back to a separate BTC wallet, it is currently unfeasible to determine that the final BTC is linked to the initial BTC. Also, cash is not completely private- bills have serial numbers that are tracked in a similar way as to how one might track Bitcoin (unless you're dealing solely in coins). BTC and XMR are both able to be cashed out fairly easily as well. They could be legally sold, given that they're functionally untraceable. You can also fairly easily coordinate cash overnighted to a PO box set up with a fake identity.
Re: Private ledger cryptocurrencies
With Monero (for example), the sender, receiver, and transaction amount are all private. The quality of Monero's privacy is up for debate, but I see no reason why explicitly tracked cash bills are more secure than a private ledger cryptocurrency.
In conclusion, within the initial context of, "When I’m doing crime, I strongly prefer there to be no record of the transaction", I don't believe that there is an opsec-based reason for you to choose cash over cryptocurrencies. There is always going to be a risk when committing crimes- that is unavoidable. Maybe this is a big point for dealing in gold, haha?
The thing about Bitcoin right now is that it is being used for good AND nefarious purposes. So you get some level of "hiding in the noise".
Add in the ability to move it around the world easily, its liquidity and transaction volume and you have just about the perfect grey / black activity currency.
Add in the ability to move it around the world easily, its liquidity and transaction volume and you have just about the perfect grey / black activity currency.
I would argue that many criminals don’t care if you know who they are. Plus cash doesn’t “scale”. Try ransomwaring millions of computers and cashing out with untraceable money.
Criminals don’t care if there’s a record of their transactions because trans-national law enforcement is basically non existent. You got ransomwared from Ukraine? Nobody cares. Until, apparently, you cause havoc across the eastern seaboard by infecting a few corporate machines associated with a gas pipeline.
Criminals don’t care if there’s a record of their transactions because trans-national law enforcement is basically non existent. You got ransomwared from Ukraine? Nobody cares. Until, apparently, you cause havoc across the eastern seaboard by infecting a few corporate machines associated with a gas pipeline.
> When I’m doing crime, I strongly prefer there to be no record of the transaction. The closer I can get to an assurance there is no permanent record of the transaction, the safer I feel in deviating from the law.
You're exactly right about this, which is why it's important to remember that a plurality (majority?) of those who speculate in cryptocurrencies don't seem to be especially aware of the whole "immutable, irrefutable public ledger" aspect.
You're exactly right about this, which is why it's important to remember that a plurality (majority?) of those who speculate in cryptocurrencies don't seem to be especially aware of the whole "immutable, irrefutable public ledger" aspect.
> If you are working a w2 job and paying taxes and paying your mortgage / auto loan...
You forgot to add "and live in a stable country with a stable currency and relatively functional contract/justice system".
You forgot to add "and live in a stable country with a stable currency and relatively functional contract/justice system".
Or just small experimental things. I can pay for jmp.chat with bitcoin, the dev doesn't have to deal with paypal and I don't have to worry about my credit card being stollen.
You can literally say that about cold hard cash. Blackmail? Pay cash. Buying illegal substances? Cash. Gambling? Get your cash out. It's all in how you use it.
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2021/05/moon-missi...
Anything is a store of value, wood, gold, water, dogecoin ect. If people want to accept something for something else this is a way of life.
It's just sad that people only see the bad use cases. How about if I transact only in crypto (Monolith card), now every purchase I make is via crypto, nothing different to using a bank card with US dollars backing it, just you have the full control over your own money.
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2021/05/moon-missi...
Anything is a store of value, wood, gold, water, dogecoin ect. If people want to accept something for something else this is a way of life.
It's just sad that people only see the bad use cases. How about if I transact only in crypto (Monolith card), now every purchase I make is via crypto, nothing different to using a bank card with US dollars backing it, just you have the full control over your own money.
Do people who had SafeDollar have control over their own money? Did the people whose money got locked in the DAO because of a software bug have control over their own money?
> How about if I transact only in crypto (Monolith card), now every purchase I make is via crypto
Do you in fact do this?
> nothing different to using a bank card with US dollars backing it
There certainly is if you read Monolith's fine print, and it's wildly disingenuous to pretend otherwise:
The Monolith account and Visa Debit Card are electronic money products which are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme or the Deposit Insurance System of the Republic of Lithuania. The funds will be safeguarded by Contis Financial Services Ltd or UAB „Finansinės paslaugos „Contis“. For any disputes, the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Bank of Lithuania consumers disputes resolutions institution are available.
> How about if I transact only in crypto (Monolith card), now every purchase I make is via crypto
Do you in fact do this?
> nothing different to using a bank card with US dollars backing it
There certainly is if you read Monolith's fine print, and it's wildly disingenuous to pretend otherwise:
The Monolith account and Visa Debit Card are electronic money products which are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme or the Deposit Insurance System of the Republic of Lithuania. The funds will be safeguarded by Contis Financial Services Ltd or UAB „Finansinės paslaugos „Contis“. For any disputes, the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Bank of Lithuania consumers disputes resolutions institution are available.
> Do people who had SafeDollar have control over their own money? Did the people whose money got locked in the DAO because of a software bug have control over their own money?
Nope, because they didn't do their due diligence. Do you deposit your savings to a new bank that's not had a single audit done? Are there any specific banks that you won't do business with? It's the exact same in the crypto sphere.
> Do you in fact do this?
I do indeed. I use it as my daily spending card. Should Contis Financial Services Ltd collapse it'd be a bummer, but I've lost more on a night out by dropping a paper note. I will agree it's not like using a bank card, I should specify more like a pre-paid card.
Whilst you don't get the financial protection that you do with standard institutions it's the price you have to pay to start working towards a different financial future.
Nope, because they didn't do their due diligence. Do you deposit your savings to a new bank that's not had a single audit done? Are there any specific banks that you won't do business with? It's the exact same in the crypto sphere.
> Do you in fact do this?
I do indeed. I use it as my daily spending card. Should Contis Financial Services Ltd collapse it'd be a bummer, but I've lost more on a night out by dropping a paper note. I will agree it's not like using a bank card, I should specify more like a pre-paid card.
Whilst you don't get the financial protection that you do with standard institutions it's the price you have to pay to start working towards a different financial future.
Valid points, but the financial future crypto like this paints is not a future that seems better to me, not like a future I want to live in, or work toward.
> Do you deposit your savings to a new bank that's not had a single audit done?
Sure, because banks in my country are regulated, and deposits are insured, so I trust literally any bank.
Sure, because banks in my country are regulated, and deposits are insured, so I trust literally any bank.
The difference is you can't use dollars to do digital transactions. Good luck with sending a suitcase full of cash to SatoshiDice. Even better luck getting a suitcase back.
The only value add for crypto right now is that it's pseudoanonymous and you can use it for black market transactions. Other than that why not just use Venmo or CashApp?
The only value add for crypto right now is that it's pseudoanonymous and you can use it for black market transactions. Other than that why not just use Venmo or CashApp?
Totally true.
That said, to deposit 10k of cash in a bank you need to fill out some forms.
I also don't have a great way to send you say 100k in cash. Suitcase full of dollars? But I can send you 2 BTC much easier.
The big hole in demanding giant ransoms was always taking delivery of the suitcase full of money. Not so hard to do with digital currency.
That said, to deposit 10k of cash in a bank you need to fill out some forms.
I also don't have a great way to send you say 100k in cash. Suitcase full of dollars? But I can send you 2 BTC much easier.
The big hole in demanding giant ransoms was always taking delivery of the suitcase full of money. Not so hard to do with digital currency.
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This is one reason cash is being phased out in many countries. It took me most of a week to deposit money on my account -- the bank literally would not take my money! They told me to find a machine, and they were either out of order, removed, or did not take cash.
Well, that's the noble explanation. Another consequence is they can now have an electronic record of every single purchase almost every citizen makes.
Well, that's the noble explanation. Another consequence is they can now have an electronic record of every single purchase almost every citizen makes.
> It's just sad that people only see the bad use cases
Yeah, when 95%+ of the actual things that people use crypto for are those things, it's hard not to. Can you honestly say the "valid" uses for crypto take up more than 5% the total volume in any possible metric you can think of? It's always ransomware, extortion, blackmail, money laundering, drugs, you name it.
Yeah, when 95%+ of the actual things that people use crypto for are those things, it's hard not to. Can you honestly say the "valid" uses for crypto take up more than 5% the total volume in any possible metric you can think of? It's always ransomware, extortion, blackmail, money laundering, drugs, you name it.
One I personally know of - https://cryptoslate.com/another-big-cardano-ada-deal-is-in-t...
There is many other cases for blockchain / crypto technologies far beyond the world of ransomware, extortion, blackmail, money laundering.
> The country will implement a national, blockchain-based student and teacher ID and attainment recording system to digitally verify grades, remotely monitor school performance and boost education and employment nationwide.
> IOHK’s Atala PRISM identity solution will enable authorities to create tamper-proof records of educational performance across 3,500 schools, 5 million students, and 750,000 teachers to pinpoint the locations and causes of educational under-achievement and allocate educational resources effectively.
You've got Walmarts chinese subsidy investing in vechain for logistics:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/walmart-china-subsidiary-team...
These are just two off the top of my head, let alone all the partnerships in the works that we haven't heard about yet.
There's big money getting into crypto whilst simultaniously lots of news and opinions regarding the fact it's used for nefarious acts.
There is many other cases for blockchain / crypto technologies far beyond the world of ransomware, extortion, blackmail, money laundering.
> The country will implement a national, blockchain-based student and teacher ID and attainment recording system to digitally verify grades, remotely monitor school performance and boost education and employment nationwide.
> IOHK’s Atala PRISM identity solution will enable authorities to create tamper-proof records of educational performance across 3,500 schools, 5 million students, and 750,000 teachers to pinpoint the locations and causes of educational under-achievement and allocate educational resources effectively.
You've got Walmarts chinese subsidy investing in vechain for logistics:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/walmart-china-subsidiary-team...
These are just two off the top of my head, let alone all the partnerships in the works that we haven't heard about yet.
There's big money getting into crypto whilst simultaniously lots of news and opinions regarding the fact it's used for nefarious acts.
[deleted]
So you're just making up number because they sound right to you? In the future, if you do some simple googling before you join a conversation you'll sound less uninformed.
https://www.newsweek.com/illegal-use-bitcoin-dropped-50-2020...
https://www.newsweek.com/illegal-use-bitcoin-dropped-50-2020...
[deleted]
> Gambling? You got it...
I had high hopes for betsofbitcoin but after making a bet on the 2014(?) superbowl the mtgox scandal occurred and my last bet was never redeemed.
I had high hopes for betsofbitcoin but after making a bet on the 2014(?) superbowl the mtgox scandal occurred and my last bet was never redeemed.
To be fair illegal is not the same as immoral. For example, cryptocurrencies can also be used to transfer money out of financial system controlled by oppressive regime which is largely a positive use. The problem is that "oppressive regime" is a matter of opinion and therefore these transfers are indistinguishable from tax evasion and other financial crimes. Techno-libertarians see that as a feature, I think most of the rest of us see that as a bug. There is no economic or technical solution there. It is almost exclusively an issue of personal politics.
Right, I am not passing judgement. I am not saying gambling in certain ways is immoral, but I am saying that it is illegal and thus bitcoin is often used to try and stay hidden.
Why would any of those things be better bought with crypto? If anything, better to buy all of those things with fiat cash, no? Why would you want a permanent record recorded every time you buy something? (Crypto)
You said it, when you are a debtor fiat with its constant debasement is great. For creditors fiat doesn't work that well.
Or where you do the equivalent of stuffing cash under your mattress by hiding the password to your cryptowallet inside a safe, or using one of the various incantations of writing your password on a post-it note.
Sure, the vast potential of reward justifies the added risk. But I'm also not in the US, I'm not rabidly anti-government, and I don't want to store my money under my floorboards. Good, old-fashioned, regulated banks serve a valuable purpose.
Sure, the vast potential of reward justifies the added risk. But I'm also not in the US, I'm not rabidly anti-government, and I don't want to store my money under my floorboards. Good, old-fashioned, regulated banks serve a valuable purpose.
> by hiding the password to your cryptowallet inside a safe, or using one of the various incantations of writing your password on a post-it note.
This is the scariest bit about crypto by far and that I will not deny. This is why whilst I don't trust banks, they do have big safes with locked boxes in. Using these with shamir backups is what protects my assets, and worst case scenario my private key is also split in two and engraved in two seperate countries.
If it's ever at the point where I can't access any of these, there's bigger shit going on in the world.
This is the scariest bit about crypto by far and that I will not deny. This is why whilst I don't trust banks, they do have big safes with locked boxes in. Using these with shamir backups is what protects my assets, and worst case scenario my private key is also split in two and engraved in two seperate countries.
If it's ever at the point where I can't access any of these, there's bigger shit going on in the world.
> This is why whilst I don't trust banks, they do have big safes with locked boxes in.
This doesn't matter at all. Banks will hand your money over during a robbery - it's policy and it happens often. What matters is that banks have insurance and legal infrastructure to deal with theft. When a bank is robbed insurance covers the loss, the FBI begins investigations, etc. The lockboxes are for show (I worked in a bank, no one will tell you otherwise).
This doesn't matter at all. Banks will hand your money over during a robbery - it's policy and it happens often. What matters is that banks have insurance and legal infrastructure to deal with theft. When a bank is robbed insurance covers the loss, the FBI begins investigations, etc. The lockboxes are for show (I worked in a bank, no one will tell you otherwise).
It's also why I think crypto is suffering a bit of the Dunning-Kruger syndrome. We've had well over 2000 years of banking and it's always the case that protecting your money then becomes a legit business-case. The business plan is ages-old and always the same: take the money under protection, ensure a certain percentage in reserve, and profit off the venture by using a percentage of funds for investment and speculation. Just, not so much that you can't pay people back.
The latter point is a stickler, so get regulation in there and ensure anyone doing banking is protected up to a certain sum. Any money beyond that... you put all your eggs in one basket, sorry. Other people need to be made whole, too.
Use the same regulation so that banks that embezzle protected customer funds can be prosecuted, too. This equally applies to insurance, credit cards, loans, and other industries that make money out of offering money.
You can't stop a run on the bank if everyone loses confidence at the same time, as we saw in 2008 (Northern Rock in the UK) or in 1929 (Wall Street). But as you say... that's when bigger shit is going on.
But now... to me crypto feels like a group of upstarts thinking they can reinvent millennia of economics and come up with something better. All I've seen so far is a skeuomorphism to a scarce resource, essentially treating silicon as if it were gold.
It's making a handful of people filthy rich, people who would have been well-off in the first place, but it's not changing the world for the better. It's siphoning another resource for a wealthy elite.
The latter point is a stickler, so get regulation in there and ensure anyone doing banking is protected up to a certain sum. Any money beyond that... you put all your eggs in one basket, sorry. Other people need to be made whole, too.
Use the same regulation so that banks that embezzle protected customer funds can be prosecuted, too. This equally applies to insurance, credit cards, loans, and other industries that make money out of offering money.
You can't stop a run on the bank if everyone loses confidence at the same time, as we saw in 2008 (Northern Rock in the UK) or in 1929 (Wall Street). But as you say... that's when bigger shit is going on.
But now... to me crypto feels like a group of upstarts thinking they can reinvent millennia of economics and come up with something better. All I've seen so far is a skeuomorphism to a scarce resource, essentially treating silicon as if it were gold.
It's making a handful of people filthy rich, people who would have been well-off in the first place, but it's not changing the world for the better. It's siphoning another resource for a wealthy elite.
The audience is the people who don’t want to deal with the government for whatever reasons, the most obvious one is doing something illegal like buying drugs or costly like sending money overseas in developing countries.
First world citizens like to complain about how little they trust their govts, but I find it very telling when those same citizens can only see crypto as a benefit to nefarious actors. It's like complaining about Facebook and continuing to use Instagram.
I think it is because we are allowed to complain in the first place. Free speech is free (monetarily and legally).
> I'm gonna be honest I don't know what the audience is for a product where you risk losing your entire life savings because you typed a wrong word in a smart contract.
Some of crypto's loudest voices are young, college-aged people who've recently read Atlas Shrugged or Catcher in the Rye and are certain that they will never be the ones to lose their keys.
Some of crypto's loudest voices are young, college-aged people who've recently read Atlas Shrugged or Catcher in the Rye and are certain that they will never be the ones to lose their keys.
As of today, the audience is "people trying to get rich fast".
[deleted]
The only audience are people who don't know about that or have more to win than to loose.
[deleted]
> rather than paying a middleman a fraction of a percent.
Having a middle man doesn’t ensure safety. It just means that you have someone to blame if it all goes wrong. And even if you blame them, they most likely won’t see any negative repercussions anyway.
Having a middle man doesn’t ensure safety. It just means that you have someone to blame if it all goes wrong. And even if you blame them, they most likely won’t see any negative repercussions anyway.
Yes, secure your own keys or risk losing everything doesn't work in the real world. This is a level of required diligence by the end-user that is unacceptable for any real world use.
With billions being syphened from African countries, it's hard to make the case that crypto microloans are a net good for the continent.
With billions being syphened from African countries, it's hard to make the case that crypto microloans are a net good for the continent.
Many of those taken in some of these elaborate scams, are security EXPERTS. Assuming that Joe T Dillhole is going to be better at securing their bag than security experts is a stretch.
> that the world does not run algorithmically
Sure it does: moving gold and commodities between countries in non-mutually-friendly regimes, very much resembles crypto.
Fiat finance is a system of contract law built on top of a de-facto "state of nature" of irreversible no-arbitrator commodity transfers. It exists in places where people can agree on who the arbitrating party should be. It does not exist outside of those places. It especially does not exist between powers that are actively at war.
Cryptocurrency platforms are, at a base layer, a digital equivalent to the commodities-transfer "state of nature." Many crypto platforms also have the mechanisms within them to build fiat finance systems atop them. (The keyword to search here is "security tokens".)
I personally think that's for the best. Build something that can simulate all the kinds of finance the real world operates on, rather than only some.
Most people, most of the time, if they touch crypto at all, should be doing so using one of the fiat "layers" on top of crypto, rather than the commodities-transfer base layer. Just like people should be buying things using credit cards, rather than by sending gold bullion in the mail.
But if the fiat layer were the only layer, then you'd have a system that only worked where contract law works, which would be no better than the existing fiat ecosystem, in the sense that it wouldn't enable many of the use-cases that cryptocurrency enables. Chief among those use-cases being securely transferring commodities to people in countries that your own fiat regime's financial infrastructure refuses to deal with, for them to then convert to local fiat money. (See e.g. the saga of this YouTuber https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAPrhJwVweWZA8GEPoClSdw trying to pay his employees/contractors in Nigeria, Liberia, etc. for their work.)
Sure it does: moving gold and commodities between countries in non-mutually-friendly regimes, very much resembles crypto.
Fiat finance is a system of contract law built on top of a de-facto "state of nature" of irreversible no-arbitrator commodity transfers. It exists in places where people can agree on who the arbitrating party should be. It does not exist outside of those places. It especially does not exist between powers that are actively at war.
Cryptocurrency platforms are, at a base layer, a digital equivalent to the commodities-transfer "state of nature." Many crypto platforms also have the mechanisms within them to build fiat finance systems atop them. (The keyword to search here is "security tokens".)
I personally think that's for the best. Build something that can simulate all the kinds of finance the real world operates on, rather than only some.
Most people, most of the time, if they touch crypto at all, should be doing so using one of the fiat "layers" on top of crypto, rather than the commodities-transfer base layer. Just like people should be buying things using credit cards, rather than by sending gold bullion in the mail.
But if the fiat layer were the only layer, then you'd have a system that only worked where contract law works, which would be no better than the existing fiat ecosystem, in the sense that it wouldn't enable many of the use-cases that cryptocurrency enables. Chief among those use-cases being securely transferring commodities to people in countries that your own fiat regime's financial infrastructure refuses to deal with, for them to then convert to local fiat money. (See e.g. the saga of this YouTuber https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAPrhJwVweWZA8GEPoClSdw trying to pay his employees/contractors in Nigeria, Liberia, etc. for their work.)
At least to me, and possibly others, any system which I have my money invested and I can lose everything I own with no recourse due to some exploit is completely laughable and something I will never ever touch. There's a reason folks keep their life savings in a Chase bank account, because if something like this happens you have recourse to recover your money.
Then don't put your money in a newly created contract?
You yourself say you keep it in a Chase bank account, you sure as hell wouldn't put your life savings in a newly created bank and trust everything to them would you?
Look at what you put your money into, has it had any audits done (this applies to both tax / financial audits for brick and morter stores, and code audits to smart contracts).
I will never ever invest my money with HSBC, they have shown time and time again to willfully break the law and soley gain monetarily from it, the governments or financial institutions don't do anything about it. Just like I will never ever invest my money into USDT, I think it's a massive scam and don't touch it in the slightest, doesn't stop millions of others investing though.
You yourself say you keep it in a Chase bank account, you sure as hell wouldn't put your life savings in a newly created bank and trust everything to them would you?
Look at what you put your money into, has it had any audits done (this applies to both tax / financial audits for brick and morter stores, and code audits to smart contracts).
I will never ever invest my money with HSBC, they have shown time and time again to willfully break the law and soley gain monetarily from it, the governments or financial institutions don't do anything about it. Just like I will never ever invest my money into USDT, I think it's a massive scam and don't touch it in the slightest, doesn't stop millions of others investing though.
I'll take an FDIC insured bank over some new cool crypto project any day of the week.
That's different, that's because you trust the insurance. If you had insurance you trusted for the new cool crypto project, you might feel differently.
People have never lost their life savings when held in a bank account?
I'm just gonna leave this here:
https://youtu.be/CS9ptA3Ya9E
It's a dark comedy sketch that has an answer to your question.
https://youtu.be/CS9ptA3Ya9E
It's a dark comedy sketch that has an answer to your question.
> Chief among those use-cases being securely transferring commodities to people in countries that your own fiat regime's financial infrastructure refuses to deal with, for them to then convert to local fiat money.
Ah, the "I want to break laws" use case for cryptocurrencies.
Ah, the "I want to break laws" use case for cryptocurrencies.
I think your position is essentially at odds with parent.
> Sure it does: moving gold and commodities between countries in non-mutually-friendly regimes, very much resembles crypto.
Parent is talking about a legal framework and yet your counter-example is a transaction between two jurisdictions/parties/legal entities that are in less-than-legal agreement with each other. Apples to oranges.
Also, I'm quite certain you and parent interpret "the world" differently. You seem to interpret it in the sense of a pre-formalized economic framework society. Whereas parent (with whom I side with), use the term "the world" to refer to that sector of society with a codified economic framework.
> Many crypto platforms also have the mechanisms within them to build fiat finance systems atop them. (The keyword to search here is "security tokens".)
That might very well be the case but parent's argument is that our legal economic system is not purely algorithmic. Crypto might have features that are analogous to our current fiat systems but those features do not describe the whole fiat system; it misses some features (or "bugs", depending on how you look at it).
To paraphrase parent's statement, having someone able to override transactions is a feature of our existing systems, for better and for worse. Conversely, a system without this arbitrator has pros and cons too. You pick your poison.
> Sure it does: moving gold and commodities between countries in non-mutually-friendly regimes, very much resembles crypto.
Parent is talking about a legal framework and yet your counter-example is a transaction between two jurisdictions/parties/legal entities that are in less-than-legal agreement with each other. Apples to oranges.
Also, I'm quite certain you and parent interpret "the world" differently. You seem to interpret it in the sense of a pre-formalized economic framework society. Whereas parent (with whom I side with), use the term "the world" to refer to that sector of society with a codified economic framework.
> Many crypto platforms also have the mechanisms within them to build fiat finance systems atop them. (The keyword to search here is "security tokens".)
That might very well be the case but parent's argument is that our legal economic system is not purely algorithmic. Crypto might have features that are analogous to our current fiat systems but those features do not describe the whole fiat system; it misses some features (or "bugs", depending on how you look at it).
To paraphrase parent's statement, having someone able to override transactions is a feature of our existing systems, for better and for worse. Conversely, a system without this arbitrator has pros and cons too. You pick your poison.
So... sending money to where your own government forbids you to send it? It sounds like you're admitting that the point of cryptocurrency is simply to break the law, while pretending like the purpose is much bigger.
There is more than one "law." Each fiat ecosystem is its own system of financial law, each mutually-incompatible with any other fiat ecosystem. Cryptocurrency gives an alternative arbitrator that allows for these mutually-incompatible systems of law to be bridged.
Also, to be clear, in the example I mentioned, the government of the US does not forbid trading with Nigeria/Liberia/etc. Traditional money-transfer services (Paypal, Western Union, most savings banks, etc.) are just unwilling to do it, because of the frequency of those transactions being scams. But this prevents people who "know what they're doing" (like people employing people in those countries!) from having any means to send money there.
This is a gap in the market, in some sense, but it's one that couldn't really be filled by any other fiat "retail" solution, as that solution would then be what scammers use to bilk people. So you really need something that's "complex and finance-nerdy" in the way that crypto is, to ensure that it's hard enough for regular people to use it to transfer money, that scammers just don't bother to try talking people through it. (Such a product would then never find product-market fit, as it would have no retail customers. Only a system run "for its own sake", like cryptocurrency systems are, can really be a good base platform to enable such transfers over the long term.)
Also, to be clear, in the example I mentioned, the government of the US does not forbid trading with Nigeria/Liberia/etc. Traditional money-transfer services (Paypal, Western Union, most savings banks, etc.) are just unwilling to do it, because of the frequency of those transactions being scams. But this prevents people who "know what they're doing" (like people employing people in those countries!) from having any means to send money there.
This is a gap in the market, in some sense, but it's one that couldn't really be filled by any other fiat "retail" solution, as that solution would then be what scammers use to bilk people. So you really need something that's "complex and finance-nerdy" in the way that crypto is, to ensure that it's hard enough for regular people to use it to transfer money, that scammers just don't bother to try talking people through it. (Such a product would then never find product-market fit, as it would have no retail customers. Only a system run "for its own sake", like cryptocurrency systems are, can really be a good base platform to enable such transfers over the long term.)
Wait, so BitCoin's benefit now is that it's too hard to use? lol
edit: And that's why it can't be used for scams! Oh my. I'm not sure what universe you live in, but it's different from mine.
edit: And that's why it can't be used for scams! Oh my. I'm not sure what universe you live in, but it's different from mine.
Crypto is too hard to use — or more specifically, requires too much financial and technical acumen to understand — to make it profitable for someone to operationalize a mass-market "volume" scam (a scam involving stealing small amounts of money from a large number of people) based on it.
"Volume" scams are the really successful scams — the ones that fly under the radar for years/decades because no individual person is ever out for enough money to make large institutions upset to the point of pursuing them. Tons of "volume" scammers get their start every day.
The opposite kind — the scams where large sums are stolen from relatively small numbers of people — are flashy, but ultimately futile, as high-value scammers almost always get caught, and quickly.
"Volume" scams are the really successful scams — the ones that fly under the radar for years/decades because no individual person is ever out for enough money to make large institutions upset to the point of pursuing them. Tons of "volume" scammers get their start every day.
The opposite kind — the scams where large sums are stolen from relatively small numbers of people — are flashy, but ultimately futile, as high-value scammers almost always get caught, and quickly.
Does Wise (fka TransferWise) send money to those countries?
The defacto state of nature is reversible transactions.
Unless the things have been destroyed, the trade can be undone
Unless the things have been destroyed, the trade can be undone
[deleted]
I can't tell if this is a joke or not but the example of moving gold between non-friendly countries (do you mean smuggling?) is probably the least algorithmic thing out there... It's something where you absolutely will fail if you don't have tolerance for faults and flexibility to recover potential losses or change course while transacting...
The parent comment's real point was that the world isn't run algorithmically. An enterprise which tries to smuggle goods may not be able to reverse transactions if they transfer too much, but they should be able to react to an overcharge and shut down operations before they lose everything. Or they should be able to stop a shipment before it reaches the border. Or they should be able to change the rules of their trade if government rules change in between.
That's the kind of stuff smart contracts tend to ignore or forget about. They have little flexibility in them in a world that's constantly in flux.
The parent comment's real point was that the world isn't run algorithmically. An enterprise which tries to smuggle goods may not be able to reverse transactions if they transfer too much, but they should be able to react to an overcharge and shut down operations before they lose everything. Or they should be able to stop a shipment before it reaches the border. Or they should be able to change the rules of their trade if government rules change in between.
That's the kind of stuff smart contracts tend to ignore or forget about. They have little flexibility in them in a world that's constantly in flux.
Indeed. Credit cards are far less decentralized than cash. But because credit cards have an administrator to protect the consumer, they are also preferable to cash.
The majority of people in the world can't get a credit card.
This argument does not help. Those same folks cannot carry around a crypto-buck either.
There are plenty of mobile-only banking solutions that are widely used in non-western worlds, and that's likely a model for emerging economies. When electronic banking comes, OP is saying that standard banking ("perfected over millenia TM") is honestly quite preferable over algorithmic contracts.
There are plenty of mobile-only banking solutions that are widely used in non-western worlds, and that's likely a model for emerging economies. When electronic banking comes, OP is saying that standard banking ("perfected over millenia TM") is honestly quite preferable over algorithmic contracts.
FWIW, traditional banking and credit processes existed over a millennia ago. The Book of Ezekiel which writes a lot about the "sin" of interest was written around 593 BC. Exodus which classically is attributed to Moses was probably actually written down around that time as well also talks about charging interest. Clearly people over 2500 years ago had concepts of loans, interest, and debt.
Note: I am not a religious extremist, I have a traditional mortgage and an auto loan.
https://biblehub.com/ezekiel/18-13.htm
https://biblehub.com/exodus/22-25.htm
Note: I am not a religious extremist, I have a traditional mortgage and an auto loan.
https://biblehub.com/ezekiel/18-13.htm
https://biblehub.com/exodus/22-25.htm
Exactly. This system has been polished to some definition of fairness over a long period of time. "millenia".
Ah oops for some reason in my mind I read that as singular millennium. My bad!
I thought it was very informative anyway, so thanks!
> This argument does not help. Those same folks cannot carry around a crypto-buck either.
I'm commenting on this as well as sibling and descendant comments: There are First World countries (several in Europe) in which credit cards are both uncommon and pretty much inaccessible to the majority of the population while at the same time crypto services apps and wallets are ubiquitous. The reason why credit cards are not is because governments want to discourage excessive personal debt.
I'm commenting on this as well as sibling and descendant comments: There are First World countries (several in Europe) in which credit cards are both uncommon and pretty much inaccessible to the majority of the population while at the same time crypto services apps and wallets are ubiquitous. The reason why credit cards are not is because governments want to discourage excessive personal debt.
Let's hear about the several European countries where crypto of much more popular than credit cards.
> This argument does not help. Those same folks cannot carry around a crypto-buck either
I'm not a big DeFi booster, but I don't think that's true. All it takes is a mobile phone. There's some pretty compelling videos coming out of El Salvador showing just how easy it is to instantly transact Bitcoin between two people simply by scanning a QR code on the other person's phone and then sending a Lightning Network transaction. This is already reality on the ground, and seemingly more accessible than getting access to credit.
I'm not a big DeFi booster, but I don't think that's true. All it takes is a mobile phone. There's some pretty compelling videos coming out of El Salvador showing just how easy it is to instantly transact Bitcoin between two people simply by scanning a QR code on the other person's phone and then sending a Lightning Network transaction. This is already reality on the ground, and seemingly more accessible than getting access to credit.
You'd have to ignore the rest of the comment to honestly think this is a reply to the point OP was making and I was clarifying.
How is that different from M-Pesa or Venmo? The difference is that no one has shown up yet in that particular location to set those up, but someone did come set up Bitcoin infra in El Salvador.
Still, the ease of spending crypto in El Salvador, great as it is, does not prove it's safe and that everyone won't get hacked and robbed.
Still, the ease of spending crypto in El Salvador, great as it is, does not prove it's safe and that everyone won't get hacked and robbed.
> Those same folks cannot carry around a crypto-buck either.
Many of them can. Smartphones have much higher adoption than credit cards in these areas.
Many of them can. Smartphones have much higher adoption than credit cards in these areas.
> There are plenty of mobile-only banking solutions that are widely used in non-western worlds, and that's likely a model for emerging economies. When electronic banking comes, OP is saying that standard banking ("perfected over millenia TM") is honestly quite preferable over algorithmic contracts.
This is true, but with that said 54 countries have instant payments [1] [2]. This number will only grow, as you’re just pushing messages around queues. Once Congress lit a fire under the Fed, it’s only taking ~4-5 years to roll out instant payments in the US. This is very fast for such endeavors.
Your average financial consumer in most countries is going to trust their bank and government to protect their fiat vs cryptopunks, blockchains, “smart contracts”, and “stablecoins”. To compete with fiat, you need to sell trust and recourse, not speed, and that’s something crypto inherently doesn’t support.
(No need to point out Venezuela and the like about where crypto might have a chance, ground truth shows those folks overwhelming used Zelle and clandestine US deposit accounts to circumvent government monetary controls [3] [4])
[1] https://www.moderntreasury.com/journal/real-time-payments-ar...
[2]https://empower1.fisglobal.com/rs/650-KGE-239/images/Report_... (pdf, start at page 30)
[3] https://www.coindesk.com/venezuela-is-a-testing-ground-for-d...
[4] https://mobile.twitter.com/jp_koning/status/1254009112263868...
Your average financial consumer in most countries is going to trust their bank and government to protect their fiat vs cryptopunks, blockchains, “smart contracts”, and “stablecoins”. To compete with fiat, you need to sell trust and recourse, not speed, and that’s something crypto inherently doesn’t support.
(No need to point out Venezuela and the like about where crypto might have a chance, ground truth shows those folks overwhelming used Zelle and clandestine US deposit accounts to circumvent government monetary controls [3] [4])
[1] https://www.moderntreasury.com/journal/real-time-payments-ar...
[2]https://empower1.fisglobal.com/rs/650-KGE-239/images/Report_... (pdf, start at page 30)
[3] https://www.coindesk.com/venezuela-is-a-testing-ground-for-d...
[4] https://mobile.twitter.com/jp_koning/status/1254009112263868...
The crypto movement in South America is growing explicitly because people are increasingly not trusting their banks and government to protect their fiat. I've never heard of Zelle and not everyone has access to a clandestine US account, while anyone can buy open a crypto wallet and get some DAI.
Could you provide evidence or a citation of crypto uptake in South America?
Here's a survey[0] that says the following:
> In addition to users in Africa and Southeast Asia, one more world region where many cryptocurrency users are located is Latin America. Peru leads adoption with 16 percent of respondents, while Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and Chile all reached double digits.
If you follow local news, you see reports every day saying how growth is constant and spiking, this[1] Chilean headline reads "people who deal Bitcoin grow over 100% in a year" just to give a quick example. I suggest googling news for "<country> criptomonedas" and you'll see most of them will have news of the sort from the past year at the most reflecting on just how many people are getting into it. Google trends for "crypto" for every country in South America have also spiked recently.
I also have anecdata, which is worthless of course but it's there. Nearly everyone I've spoken with who saves here either already has some crypto or is learning about it in order to get started.
[0] https://www.statista.com/chart/18345/crypto-currency-adoptio... [1] https://www.df.cl/noticias/mercados/bolsa-monedas/se-dispara...
If you follow local news, you see reports every day saying how growth is constant and spiking, this[1] Chilean headline reads "people who deal Bitcoin grow over 100% in a year" just to give a quick example. I suggest googling news for "<country> criptomonedas" and you'll see most of them will have news of the sort from the past year at the most reflecting on just how many people are getting into it. Google trends for "crypto" for every country in South America have also spiked recently.
I also have anecdata, which is worthless of course but it's there. Nearly everyone I've spoken with who saves here either already has some crypto or is learning about it in order to get started.
[0] https://www.statista.com/chart/18345/crypto-currency-adoptio... [1] https://www.df.cl/noticias/mercados/bolsa-monedas/se-dispara...
Those same people are way less equipped to use crypto. I have been to shops in rural areas in third world countries which have credit card machines running over telephone lines. Broadband internet and fancy tech is still a decade+ away for a lot of parts of the world.
but they can get and use {meme}coin?
Much of the world literally does run algorithmically. Literally every day you trust your life, privacy and money to algorithms that make decisions without human intervention. The financial system trades trillions of dollars in automated systems that make split-second decisions in a way that precludes human supervision. Hedge funds and banks already trust algorithms that if broken could lose billions.
The existence of flawed software does not mean that it’s impossible to make reliable or trustworthy software. If you’ll never trust your money to a smart contract no matter how vetted, then I’d recommend you never fly a plane or store personal data in the cloud.
The existence of flawed software does not mean that it’s impossible to make reliable or trustworthy software. If you’ll never trust your money to a smart contract no matter how vetted, then I’d recommend you never fly a plane or store personal data in the cloud.
It literally does not. The world runs advised by algorithms, but not governed by them. It's a fundamental difference. When algorithms in the real world create lose-lose outcomes, people override them, which is why when your credit card gets stolen you don't end up paying for stuff. You can bake that logic into a software contract, but if the design of your system is that the totality of software contracts are the final word, you have the same problem; you can't predict all the corner cases. It turns out a lot of the human beings that work for companies engaged in the financial system actually do stuff to solve problems.
You are aware that the vast majority of financial market trading is run by algorithms that govern not advise vast amounts of capital in an irreversible way.
Sometime these algorithms break or are exploited. Often in spectacular disasters. Knight lost half a billion dollars in 30 seconds. Nobody reversed though, even though it was clear error.
If you have a 401k I guarantee you that a significant amount of your money was traded by an algorithm that if broken would have lost everything. If the question is whether people would ever trust capital to irreversible algorithms, the answer is they already do. It’s called the stock market.
Sometime these algorithms break or are exploited. Often in spectacular disasters. Knight lost half a billion dollars in 30 seconds. Nobody reversed though, even though it was clear error.
If you have a 401k I guarantee you that a significant amount of your money was traded by an algorithm that if broken would have lost everything. If the question is whether people would ever trust capital to irreversible algorithms, the answer is they already do. It’s called the stock market.
// Knight lost half a billion dollars in 30 seconds. Nobody reversed though, even though it was clear error.
You cited Knight twice in this thread, and it's just not the same concept. I think your point is that people should accept irreversible transactions in whole because there are some edge cases where they exist today, and that just doesn't make sense.
First, there's a difference between an average person and Knight in the degree of sophistication of tools that they can wield. So the fact that Knight is allowed to operate like this is in no way connected to whether this mode should be the default for an average person.
Second, the Knight example can be interpreted as an exception that proves the rule. They had an unforced error that (from what I recall) looked to the rest of the world like real trading. But there's a whole other slew of issues (clearly bad prices, exchange-errors, etc) that cause trades to be unwound. Some exciting reading if you care: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/erroneous-trade.asp
You have a point that yes to some extent we're all subject to underlying risk of irreversible activity but the bigger point is that we as society try to minimize it where possible. So moving the system in the other direction, especially where it makes it easy for Joe-Blow to fuck it up, is not the way.
You cited Knight twice in this thread, and it's just not the same concept. I think your point is that people should accept irreversible transactions in whole because there are some edge cases where they exist today, and that just doesn't make sense.
First, there's a difference between an average person and Knight in the degree of sophistication of tools that they can wield. So the fact that Knight is allowed to operate like this is in no way connected to whether this mode should be the default for an average person.
Second, the Knight example can be interpreted as an exception that proves the rule. They had an unforced error that (from what I recall) looked to the rest of the world like real trading. But there's a whole other slew of issues (clearly bad prices, exchange-errors, etc) that cause trades to be unwound. Some exciting reading if you care: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/erroneous-trade.asp
You have a point that yes to some extent we're all subject to underlying risk of irreversible activity but the bigger point is that we as society try to minimize it where possible. So moving the system in the other direction, especially where it makes it easy for Joe-Blow to fuck it up, is not the way.
There’s no categorical difference between Knight and Vanguard. If Vanguard fucks up its trading, the exchange is not under any obligation to make it right. The only difference is that Knight was a lot more aggressive in terms of pushing the envelope on its algorithms to reap excess profit. I’m sure Vanguard is a lot more politically sympathetic, but I’d trust that “guarantee” a hell of a lot less than I’d trust battle tested software.
Say the fund managers running your 401k decided to say “fuck it, turn off all the circuit breakers.” Would you just shrug your shoulders and say “no worries, I’m sure FINRA’s got my back if anything goes wrong. Blindly trusting the people running institutions to keep you safe is as misguided as assuming that all software is infallible .
Say the fund managers running your 401k decided to say “fuck it, turn off all the circuit breakers.” Would you just shrug your shoulders and say “no worries, I’m sure FINRA’s got my back if anything goes wrong. Blindly trusting the people running institutions to keep you safe is as misguided as assuming that all software is infallible .
I agree with the individual bits of data but I don't agree with your ultimate conclusion.
The point is - do you aim to make the system fixable by human judgement or not? This thread is full of examples we like: the credit card protecting us from fraudulent charges, FDIC insurance, etc. Are there places in our life that society is forced to operate without such backstops? Yes. But we want to minimize, not maximize those - especially when it comes to consumer-facing capabilities.
The point is - do you aim to make the system fixable by human judgement or not? This thread is full of examples we like: the credit card protecting us from fraudulent charges, FDIC insurance, etc. Are there places in our life that society is forced to operate without such backstops? Yes. But we want to minimize, not maximize those - especially when it comes to consumer-facing capabilities.
In a previous lifetime not so long ago, I was paid to find vulnerabilities in exchange infrastructure --- order routers, match engines, FIX gateways, all that stuff. When I was getting started, any interesting finding was super exciting. "This is a billion-dollar vulnerability! Suck it, Mark Dowd!"
Then I learned about out-trades. In reality, these heavily automated markets screw up (or, rather, customers of these markets screw up) somewhat regularly. Surprise: one of the reasons lots of humans work both at the exchanges and at companies that program directly to them is that mistakes happen, and are often resolved not by code but by hashing things out between cooperating blobs of electrified fat tissue. Gross, I know!
Obviously, there are big screwups where the rules coded into the algorithm are the last word. But those rules aren't always the final word, and, more importantly, the rules themselves are easily changed when the electric meat blobs want them to.
Then I learned about out-trades. In reality, these heavily automated markets screw up (or, rather, customers of these markets screw up) somewhat regularly. Surprise: one of the reasons lots of humans work both at the exchanges and at companies that program directly to them is that mistakes happen, and are often resolved not by code but by hashing things out between cooperating blobs of electrified fat tissue. Gross, I know!
Obviously, there are big screwups where the rules coded into the algorithm are the last word. But those rules aren't always the final word, and, more importantly, the rules themselves are easily changed when the electric meat blobs want them to.
Knight took closer to an hour to melt down than 30 seconds.
NYSE and the SEC _chose_ not to reverse those trades but they could have. There are plenty of ways the exchange can undo those and also trade busts happen daily on every exchange.
Almost certainly if a large index etf or fund lost everything to a software glitch the trades would be reversed and even if for policy reasons they weren’t they could be. The facility exists.
NYSE and the SEC _chose_ not to reverse those trades but they could have. There are plenty of ways the exchange can undo those and also trade busts happen daily on every exchange.
Almost certainly if a large index etf or fund lost everything to a software glitch the trades would be reversed and even if for policy reasons they weren’t they could be. The facility exists.
> If you have a 401k I guarantee you that a significant amount of your money was traded by an algorithm that if broken would have lost everything
How so? My 401k is invested in a fund that just owns a broad index of stocks, not an algorithmic trading hedge fund.
How so? My 401k is invested in a fund that just owns a broad index of stocks, not an algorithmic trading hedge fund.
Even that has an "algorithm" behind it - they have to manage inflows & outflows, the heartbeat trades if it's an ETF, etc. Vanguard doesn't have a person sitting there buying a little bit of AAPL every time someone invests in VTSAX.
OP is trying to say that even something as simple as VTSAX could have a problem and, I don't know, accidentally sell all its AAPL and so it's proof that even for the current market there are rules that govern.
Except, of course, if VTSAX dumped all their AAPL somehow the trade would be unwound, as trades occasionally are. Selling stock on the market is not nearly as irreversible as it may seem.
OP is trying to say that even something as simple as VTSAX could have a problem and, I don't know, accidentally sell all its AAPL and so it's proof that even for the current market there are rules that govern.
Except, of course, if VTSAX dumped all their AAPL somehow the trade would be unwound, as trades occasionally are. Selling stock on the market is not nearly as irreversible as it may seem.
> Sometime these algorithms break or are exploited. Often in spectacular disasters. Knight lost half a billion dollars in 30 seconds. Nobody reversed though, even though it was clear error.
This actually blew my mind. The exchanges bust trades all the time. I don't why they didn't do it in this case.
This actually blew my mind. The exchanges bust trades all the time. I don't why they didn't do it in this case.
I think quite a few people who find crypto objectionable will also consider many, even most of the weirder technological outgrowths of the stock market to be every bit as objectionable.
As we've repeatedly learned, to the detriment of most people in the world.
As we've repeatedly learned, to the detriment of most people in the world.
The world is more than just automated trading systems
The matching engine on the exchange is also automated. The settlement system is electronic. Etc. etc.
Yes and if any of those make mistakes, the trades can be rolled back with human intervention.
> When algorithms in the real world create lose-lose outcomes, people override them, which is why when your credit card gets stolen you don't end up paying for stuff.
An exploit where I take all your bitcoins isn't a lose-lose outcome, and neither is that. If I steal your credit card and you have to pay for my stuff, you're the only party who loses.
An exploit where I take all your bitcoins isn't a lose-lose outcome, and neither is that. If I steal your credit card and you have to pay for my stuff, you're the only party who loses.
If you steal my credit card and buy things with it, I will call my bank and I won't need to pay for it when I settle my statement balance at the end of the month. The bank will follow up with the merchant and/or law enforcement and, in most cases, the bank will get its money back somehow. In the cases where it doesn't, I'm sure the bank is insured against losses. Banks and insurance companies probably have a complicated model for estimating $X/yr in theft.
If someone steals my wallet's private key (= stealing my credit card), I'm done. There is no recourse AFAIK.
If someone steals my wallet's private key (= stealing my credit card), I'm done. There is no recourse AFAIK.
But there is a price to pay for the responsibility you burden off onto the bank. Banks charge fees, pay almost zero interest (at least currently) and are usually very unpleasant to deal with when you want to borrow money.
I’d say it depends. You probably shouldn’t manage your life savings using a crypto wallet. Keep some money at a bank. Keep some money in cryptos.
Cryptos are not a solution to every financial problem out there but they add new and exciting options for us. Don’t think black and white. But embrace more freedom to choose.
I’d say it depends. You probably shouldn’t manage your life savings using a crypto wallet. Keep some money at a bank. Keep some money in cryptos.
Cryptos are not a solution to every financial problem out there but they add new and exciting options for us. Don’t think black and white. But embrace more freedom to choose.
Crypto transactions have fees, crypto wallets don’t accrue interest, and my exchange won’t loan me coins. So I’m not sure this is the slam dunk on banks that you were going for.
> crypto wallets don’t accrue interest
The Coinbase wallet integrates the major lending protocols. Ethereum fees are reasonable these days. So lending USDC or DAI and earning interest has become a great alternative to saving accounts.
If you hold fair amounts of Bitcoin or Ethereum long term, you can use it as collateral and borrow USDC. This way you can not only let your money work for you, you can also use it to borrow dollars for a short term credit — like getting a mortgage but without a bank.
Furthermore, these days there are other emerging financial tools that banks simply can’t provide. Earning exchange fees on liquidity pools, for example, or staking cryptos and earn validation fees like a miner for Proof-Of-Stake networks.
Point is: Lots of innovation, here. When I look at banks nothing really has been happening there for decades.
The Coinbase wallet integrates the major lending protocols. Ethereum fees are reasonable these days. So lending USDC or DAI and earning interest has become a great alternative to saving accounts.
If you hold fair amounts of Bitcoin or Ethereum long term, you can use it as collateral and borrow USDC. This way you can not only let your money work for you, you can also use it to borrow dollars for a short term credit — like getting a mortgage but without a bank.
Furthermore, these days there are other emerging financial tools that banks simply can’t provide. Earning exchange fees on liquidity pools, for example, or staking cryptos and earn validation fees like a miner for Proof-Of-Stake networks.
Point is: Lots of innovation, here. When I look at banks nothing really has been happening there for decades.
[deleted]
> If you steal my credit card and buy things with it, I will call my bank and I won't need to pay for it when I settle my statement balance at the end of the month.
This is an epically terrible argument for why you shouldn't have to pay for things someone else purchased with your stolen credit card. "I shouldn't have to because I don't have to"?
Compare tptacek's claim:
>>> which is why when your credit card gets stolen you don't end up paying for stuff.
There are four parties involved: you, the thief, the bank, and the merchant.
When you can afford to pay, here's a win/loss table in the case where you have to pay:
This is an epically terrible argument for why you shouldn't have to pay for things someone else purchased with your stolen credit card. "I shouldn't have to because I don't have to"?
Compare tptacek's claim:
>>> which is why when your credit card gets stolen you don't end up paying for stuff.
There are four parties involved: you, the thief, the bank, and the merchant.
When you can afford to pay, here's a win/loss table in the case where you have to pay:
you: lose
bank: win
merchant: win
thief: win
you: win
bank: win
merchant: lose
thief: win
you: win
bank: lose
merchant: win
thief: win
you: win
bank: lose
merchant: win
thief: win
I was sure someone would make this argument and debated dumping more words into my comment to address it preemptively, but figured instead I'd wait for someone to spell it out first.
So, just to clear this up: you, the customer, and your credit card company agree that it's lose-lose for retail customers to be on the hook for credit card fraud. It makes it much harder to actually use the credit card transaction processing system, which you want to do because it's way better and safer than carrying cash, and the credit card companies want you to do because they're credit card companies.
In any given situation, a merchant on the hook for stolen stuff does not agree that this is lose-lose. Them getting paid with stolen money is a win-lose for them. But the credit card company takes the long view: if customers were always on the hook for this stuff, customers would stop using credit cards as much. It's better for everyone if it's easy to buy things, and not terrifying to shop online.
Merchants that disagree with this assessment can refuse to take credit cards. They can just take Bitcoins, The Currency Of The Future. The consensus view here is not hard to discover.
So, just to clear this up: you, the customer, and your credit card company agree that it's lose-lose for retail customers to be on the hook for credit card fraud. It makes it much harder to actually use the credit card transaction processing system, which you want to do because it's way better and safer than carrying cash, and the credit card companies want you to do because they're credit card companies.
In any given situation, a merchant on the hook for stolen stuff does not agree that this is lose-lose. Them getting paid with stolen money is a win-lose for them. But the credit card company takes the long view: if customers were always on the hook for this stuff, customers would stop using credit cards as much. It's better for everyone if it's easy to buy things, and not terrifying to shop online.
Merchants that disagree with this assessment can refuse to take credit cards. They can just take Bitcoins, The Currency Of The Future. The consensus view here is not hard to discover.
As the holder of the credit card I can't think of a good reason why I would/should pay the debt off for a purchase I didn't make. I did not initiate the sale with the merchant, I did not verify I was the rightful card holder, I did not authorize the funds to be transferred, and I will not send money to that bank to make up for any of that. Banks are in the business of encouraging transactions and my card number could be skimmed from a physical device, or from hacked website on the internet, or I used it at Target https://money.cnn.com/2013/12/18/news/companies/target-credi..., or someone physically stole my wallet.
If they did try to collect then that sounds like a great reason to go back to cash because even if I get mugged, criminals can't spend me tens of thousands of dollars into debt by stealing my cash on hand. They are limited to what's in my wallet.
If they did try to collect then that sounds like a great reason to go back to cash because even if I get mugged, criminals can't spend me tens of thousands of dollars into debt by stealing my cash on hand. They are limited to what's in my wallet.
> As the holder of the credit card I can't think of a good reason why I would/should pay the debt off for a purchase I didn't make.
This applies to everyone involved, but someone's going to pay for the loss anyway, unless you can recover from the thief.
There is no reason for the merchant to pay for the purchase either -- he is even less culpable than you are. But that's what everyone is advocating here.
This applies to everyone involved, but someone's going to pay for the loss anyway, unless you can recover from the thief.
There is no reason for the merchant to pay for the purchase either -- he is even less culpable than you are. But that's what everyone is advocating here.
There obviously is a reason for merchants to eat the losses, or else virtually every merchant in the modern world wouldn't accept credit cards. The reason is that merchants (on the whole) agree with credit card companies that it is better for customers to feel safe and comfortable shopping, and thus increase transaction volume, even if doing so means that merchants will occasionally eat losses from fraud.
You are discussing a different level of "reasons" than frumper is. In your sense, there is a reason for merchants to take the losses, and there is also a reason for customers to take the losses. But in the sense that there is no reason why customers should take these losses:
>>> I did not initiate the sale with the merchant, I did not verify I was the rightful card holder, I did not authorize the funds to be transferred
there is also no reason why merchants should.
The fact that the system currently operates in a certain way is not actually evidence that it cannot operate in a different way.
>>> I did not initiate the sale with the merchant, I did not verify I was the rightful card holder, I did not authorize the funds to be transferred
there is also no reason why merchants should.
The fact that the system currently operates in a certain way is not actually evidence that it cannot operate in a different way.
It's pretty good evidence that there's no consensus that favors structurally irreversible transactions. But again, if you do, there's a Coin for that!
Replying to adtac:
But what if someone does not want the insurance of the bank? There is no opt out. With something like bitcoin you ideally have the option to take the risk of final settlement on your own or delegate it to some insurance deliberately
But what if someone does not want the insurance of the bank? There is no opt out. With something like bitcoin you ideally have the option to take the risk of final settlement on your own or delegate it to some insurance deliberately
> Much of the world literally does run algorithmically.
I think you're missing the parent's point, which is around the world running on legal contracts.
It's that legal disputes are settled non-algorithmically. If someone harms you through fraud or other illegal action, a judge can order a transaction reversed, etc.
None of this has anything to do with algorithmic trading, or using algorithms in finance generally for efficiency.
I think you're missing the parent's point, which is around the world running on legal contracts.
It's that legal disputes are settled non-algorithmically. If someone harms you through fraud or other illegal action, a judge can order a transaction reversed, etc.
None of this has anything to do with algorithmic trading, or using algorithms in finance generally for efficiency.
> The existence of flawed software does not mean that it’s impossible to make reliable or trustworthy software.
It also doesn't mean that it is economically feasible to make 100% reliable or trustworthy software.
> If you’ll never trust your money to a smart contract no matter how vetted, then I’d recommend you never fly a plane or store personal data in the cloud.
Isn't vetting of contracts the opposite of having a no human touch algorithmically run world?
And who does the vetting of the code? Who does the vetting of the people the vet the code? Who does the vetting of the people that run the code?
To have your money in smart contracts right now is tantamount to seeing those 737 max plane crashes in the past, then plugging your ears with your fingers and saying I can't wait to fly on a 737 max tomorrow. It's kind of a mess out there right now [1].
[1] https://cryptoslate.com/binance-smart-chain-sounds-alarm-ove...
It also doesn't mean that it is economically feasible to make 100% reliable or trustworthy software.
> If you’ll never trust your money to a smart contract no matter how vetted, then I’d recommend you never fly a plane or store personal data in the cloud.
Isn't vetting of contracts the opposite of having a no human touch algorithmically run world?
And who does the vetting of the code? Who does the vetting of the people the vet the code? Who does the vetting of the people that run the code?
To have your money in smart contracts right now is tantamount to seeing those 737 max plane crashes in the past, then plugging your ears with your fingers and saying I can't wait to fly on a 737 max tomorrow. It's kind of a mess out there right now [1].
[1] https://cryptoslate.com/binance-smart-chain-sounds-alarm-ove...
I'd say most of the systems you mention either a) have human failsafes b) have years of pre-algorithmic precedent such that the algorithm matches some well-known accepted process or c) are speculative in nature and therefor can assume the risk of a faulty algorithm.
Algorithmic stablecoins are mostly in category "c" so far. There is no human failsafe and there is no predetermined process that can shape the algorithm.
Algorithmic stablecoins are mostly in category "c" so far. There is no human failsafe and there is no predetermined process that can shape the algorithm.
> The financial system trades trillions of dollars in automated systems that make split-second decisions in a way that precludes human supervision.
Nope. Regulations require human supervision, in some way, of that trading.
Furthermore, those trades have exactly the kind of non-algorithmic softness that omk talks about: if an algorithm makes a trade which is obviously incorrect, you can ask the exchange to bust it.
Nope. Regulations require human supervision, in some way, of that trading.
Furthermore, those trades have exactly the kind of non-algorithmic softness that omk talks about: if an algorithm makes a trade which is obviously incorrect, you can ask the exchange to bust it.
>Literally every day you trust your life, privacy and money to algorithms that make decisions without human intervention. The financial system trades trillions of dollars in automated systems that make split-second decisions in a way that precludes human supervision.
... but when that stuff goes wrong, which it does, we don't just say "geez that's too bad, the code is the code".
Look at the 2010 flash crash: something like 20,000 trades were broken after discussion between FINRA and the exchanges based on how far they were from the reference price.
Similarly, I don't end up eating the entire loss if my bank's anti-fraud system mistakenly approves a transaction on a stolen credit card, because I have 60 days from the statement date to report the problem under the FCBA.
The point is that in most cases where physics is not involved (e.g. flight control systems), the real-time behavior of the systems is backstopped by processes to deal with exceptions in a slower, more considered way.
... but when that stuff goes wrong, which it does, we don't just say "geez that's too bad, the code is the code".
Look at the 2010 flash crash: something like 20,000 trades were broken after discussion between FINRA and the exchanges based on how far they were from the reference price.
Similarly, I don't end up eating the entire loss if my bank's anti-fraud system mistakenly approves a transaction on a stolen credit card, because I have 60 days from the statement date to report the problem under the FCBA.
The point is that in most cases where physics is not involved (e.g. flight control systems), the real-time behavior of the systems is backstopped by processes to deal with exceptions in a slower, more considered way.
Knight lost half a billion dollars in 30 seconds and not a single trade was reversed. If anything similar happened to any major hedge fund or market maker, nothing would get reversed.
Every hedge fund and market maker knows that if their algorithms break, their money is gone. Period. No backsies. The point is billions in capital is already completely trusted to algorithms with no human fail safe.
Every hedge fund and market maker knows that if their algorithms break, their money is gone. Period. No backsies. The point is billions in capital is already completely trusted to algorithms with no human fail safe.
>Knight lost half a billion dollars in 30 seconds and not a single trade was reversed. If anything similar happened to any major hedge fund or market maker, nothing would get reversed.
I am pretty sure that NYSE canceled trades in six names after Knight; and the LULD pause rules that were introduced after the 2010 flash crash (unfortunately too late to save Knight) also create opportunities for human intervention.
I am pretty sure that NYSE canceled trades in six names after Knight; and the LULD pause rules that were introduced after the 2010 flash crash (unfortunately too late to save Knight) also create opportunities for human intervention.
But in many cases, there are ways to dispute and/or retrospectively fix or amend a transaction that is mis-classified.
In the exceptionally rare case that something is exploited within a cryptocurrency, there is no recourse for the victim.
In the exceptionally rare case that something is exploited within a cryptocurrency, there is no recourse for the victim.
Sure. But when you get pissed off at those algorithms, you can turn to the government to force the entities behind the algorithms to change the result. That's the whole point. It's not algorithmic in the end. Code is not law, and if it is, that's a bug, not a feature, to most people.
I don’t disagree with you, but I think the only fallacy here is that it’s an extremely zero-sum way to look at things.
Are we perhaps better off for many — maybe even all — of our status quo legal contracts not working like software programs? Sure.
Is there a class of legal contracts — either already in existence, or made possible by crypto — that’d make much more sense if ran like software (with different requirements/constraints than the error tolerance you described)? I don’t see why not, and why this would be mutually exclusive with the first premise.
Are we perhaps better off for many — maybe even all — of our status quo legal contracts not working like software programs? Sure.
Is there a class of legal contracts — either already in existence, or made possible by crypto — that’d make much more sense if ran like software (with different requirements/constraints than the error tolerance you described)? I don’t see why not, and why this would be mutually exclusive with the first premise.
I agree that it isn't a zero sum game and that there are valid use cases. But I don't see any of these use cases operating over a multi-million dollar business. There has to be a way to override an exploit when a sum like that is at stake.
Not to suggest that this is the best way to do it, but that’s already happened on Ethereum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization)
What would such a contract look like?
The whole point of crypto-like contracts is that the terms of the contract are defined solely by code. Ambiguity is, by definition, impossible.
If you remove that, why not just use a regular contract?
The whole point of crypto-like contracts is that the terms of the contract are defined solely by code. Ambiguity is, by definition, impossible.
If you remove that, why not just use a regular contract?
Where does the legality of a contract get determined?
The execution of a contract seems distinct from is legal validation.
The execution of a contract seems distinct from is legal validation.
This is consistently the case too, not just in financial systems. Even language, which is loosely structured and something we get 'wrong' a lot on a day to day basis, is better for that reason - strictness just doesn't fit into the world of human beings. We're much better at using context to make case by case calls - a rigorous, inflexible system is playing against our greatest strengths.
I think the word „smart contract“ does not actually describe them very good. Of course, a piece of software can not replace a legal contract, really, because software is stupid and inflexible.
Think of smart contracts rather as vending machines for financial transactions. For example: You enter some crypto coins, maybe select an option and the machine returns a receipt for redeeming your investment plus some interest later.
If the machine is well designed it will forever do the same thing and, hence, be reliable and convenient. Of course, bugs can happen. But like with vending machines, you test and audit its code before deploying it everywhere.
Think of smart contracts rather as vending machines for financial transactions. For example: You enter some crypto coins, maybe select an option and the machine returns a receipt for redeeming your investment plus some interest later.
If the machine is well designed it will forever do the same thing and, hence, be reliable and convenient. Of course, bugs can happen. But like with vending machines, you test and audit its code before deploying it everywhere.
In a very real way, those contracts are less smart than existing legal contracts.
In the same way a "smart speaker" allows for interactive and sensitivity to its environment compared to a "dumb speaker", a "legal contract" allows for arguing and bugfixing and sensitivity to its environment compared to an block chain "contract".
They should call them "strict contracts" or "inflexible contracts" or "software-enforced contracts". The smarts have been taken out on purpose.
In the same way a "smart speaker" allows for interactive and sensitivity to its environment compared to a "dumb speaker", a "legal contract" allows for arguing and bugfixing and sensitivity to its environment compared to an block chain "contract".
They should call them "strict contracts" or "inflexible contracts" or "software-enforced contracts". The smarts have been taken out on purpose.
> In a very real way, those contracts are less smart than existing legal contracts.
It's more that they're just entirely separate things. Smart contracts are programmable money. Contracts are agreements between parties. The fact that you can use smart contracts to automatically take actions required by an actual contract is interesting and useful, but it's not enough to make the two comparable.
It's more that they're just entirely separate things. Smart contracts are programmable money. Contracts are agreements between parties. The fact that you can use smart contracts to automatically take actions required by an actual contract is interesting and useful, but it's not enough to make the two comparable.
I'm not the one who decided to name them "smart contracts" instead of "programmable money". Not that I think the latter term makes sense...
> The smarts have been taken out on purpose.
Yes. Where dumb contracts make sense, they make many financial services much cheaper. But investing your life savings somewhere will probably forever demand counselling by a human being.
Yes. Where dumb contracts make sense, they make many financial services much cheaper. But investing your life savings somewhere will probably forever demand counselling by a human being.
I'm a crypto head but I don't think it will ever replace traditional systems in any way. For me, DeFi is its own cyberpunk universe where this stuff is part of the game.
A point that most people miss is that the world is slowly being eaten by algorithms. One example would be trading floors being converter from mosh pits to electronic ledger books. Another example would be slow advent of self driving, sure it's not here yet, but I think we can agree it is possible.
So, is it that much of a stretch to assume that some day a significant fraction of contracts will be more algorithmic? "The best way to predict future is to create it" - unatributed.
So, is it that much of a stretch to assume that some day a significant fraction of contracts will be more algorithmic? "The best way to predict future is to create it" - unatributed.
The backstop needs to be humans.
The rest of the world doesn't want to lose millions due to an exceptional condition in a contract that wasn't apparent on audit.
That isn't how the law works, and that's a good thing.
When it comes to contract disputes you ultimately wind up before a human with hopefully decades of experience trained by a system with centuries of experience which can deploy some level of nuance.
Which is not how geeks think the legal system works. Or if they do understand it works that way they feel that it is flawed. That isn't a flaw, that's a feature.
Sometimes it goes wrong. But if you're ever the beneficiary of a judge going "yeah that contract term was always bullshit. you think you're clever, but i wasn't born yesterday. nullified." then you'll appreciate it.
The rest of the world doesn't want to lose millions due to an exceptional condition in a contract that wasn't apparent on audit.
That isn't how the law works, and that's a good thing.
When it comes to contract disputes you ultimately wind up before a human with hopefully decades of experience trained by a system with centuries of experience which can deploy some level of nuance.
Which is not how geeks think the legal system works. Or if they do understand it works that way they feel that it is flawed. That isn't a flaw, that's a feature.
Sometimes it goes wrong. But if you're ever the beneficiary of a judge going "yeah that contract term was always bullshit. you think you're clever, but i wasn't born yesterday. nullified." then you'll appreciate it.
This is the reason crypto enthusiasts are enthusiastic in the first place.
Crypto enthusiasts want to defect from the system of democratic law in favor of algorithmic law.
Crypto enthusiasts want to defect from the system of democratic law in favor of algorithmic law.
These topics are orthogonal to the technology. It's perfectly possible to create tokens using smart contracts on the ethereum blockchain that have keys that can reverse transactions. I deployed a simple one to a testnet a while back as a proof of concept for a bank (any time an enforcement action was taken, a reason had to be provided, and it was broadcast as an event).
And just because you're using a smart contract, doesn't mean that the legal system of the jurisdiction you're in no longer has an opinion or the ability to make judgements against you.
So, I agree, some of these things are features not bugs to normal humans, but to most cryptocurrency enthusiasts they are anathema. Ultimately we'll need systems that are a bit more friendly to error. It's early days though, and the technology is flexible enough to incorporate nearly any kind of system you want.
And just because you're using a smart contract, doesn't mean that the legal system of the jurisdiction you're in no longer has an opinion or the ability to make judgements against you.
So, I agree, some of these things are features not bugs to normal humans, but to most cryptocurrency enthusiasts they are anathema. Ultimately we'll need systems that are a bit more friendly to error. It's early days though, and the technology is flexible enough to incorporate nearly any kind of system you want.
That’s precisely my point. An oracle in the system is needed for an override. But introduction of such an oracle is viewed by most crypto enthusiasts as a undebatable compromise.
> Legal contracts do not work like a software program and that characteristic is a feature not a bug.
Not everyone agrees with that. Everyone using smart contracts is opting in to code-as-law - nobody who doesn't want that needs to use or touch them.
Not everyone agrees with that. Everyone using smart contracts is opting in to code-as-law - nobody who doesn't want that needs to use or touch them.
When I was young I remember when I showed Excel to my parents, they always calculated through the numbers because they didn't trust computers.
Maybe we have a similar phenomenon with blockchains nowadays... Of course there will be errors in the source code somewhere, it is software written by humans!? It is just a matter of creating another level of abstraction as a safeguard in the smart contract, maybe even with 4 eye principles...
Maybe we have a similar phenomenon with blockchains nowadays... Of course there will be errors in the source code somewhere, it is software written by humans!? It is just a matter of creating another level of abstraction as a safeguard in the smart contract, maybe even with 4 eye principles...
So long as these are software errors, we can fix them. We can't drain swamps, though.
This is a pretty small drop for the space.
This is a good news aggregator for rugs (exit scams), bugs & more: https://www.rekt.news/
This is a good news aggregator for rugs (exit scams), bugs & more: https://www.rekt.news/
Is there a website along the lines of istheshipstillstuck.com or arewewebyet.org but for "Is that coin / smart-contract dead already" ?
Would be an useful reference in this ever-changing landscape, though I would pity the maintainers.
Would be an useful reference in this ever-changing landscape, though I would pity the maintainers.
Yes - Rekt. https://www.rekt.news/leaderboard/
Looking forward to Tether taking top position on this leaderboard and beating 2nd place by a factor of 1000.
[deleted]
Is there one for all the scam ICOs from 2017/2018? I'm ashamed to admit I fell for one called KYC and one called Crc, which was supposedly supported by Crytek or something. It was just a hundred bucks, but I've always wondered what happened to that one given that it had a well known brand tacked on.
I thought it was $248 million. 248k is tiny for a stablecoin.
This stuff always has the vague feeling of pirate treasure type stuff. Like you’ve got a map with a red X on it and you then go look for the treasure and it’s got all these traps and stuff and then bam! Treasure! But then the pirates come after you.
"SafeDollar" -- what an an unintentionally but perfectly Orwellian name!
Nonetheless, I feel bad both for the people who worked hard to create this failed cryptocurrency and for the victims who suffered these sudden losses.
It's hard to write bug-free code. One way to help prevent bugs is to make languages less powerful. In hindsight, it seems that Satoshi Nakamoto's decision not to make Bitcoin's scripting language Turing complete, making all sorts of bugs impossible, will prove to be a smart choice over time. It forces applications of Bitcoin that require control flow to be executed off the main chain.
Nonetheless, I feel bad both for the people who worked hard to create this failed cryptocurrency and for the victims who suffered these sudden losses.
It's hard to write bug-free code. One way to help prevent bugs is to make languages less powerful. In hindsight, it seems that Satoshi Nakamoto's decision not to make Bitcoin's scripting language Turing complete, making all sorts of bugs impossible, will prove to be a smart choice over time. It forces applications of Bitcoin that require control flow to be executed off the main chain.
I only feel bad for them to an extent. Many people are entering the crypto-space solely on hype hoping to get rich quick but honestly have no clue what they are doing and have way too much cash to burn.
> As a result, SafeDollar’s price—which was supposed to always be equal to $1 since it’s a stablecoin—has plummeted to zero, according to the protocol’s own website.
Any defi project can all themselves a stablecoin. It is false advertising to say that you will maintain the peg to a dollar if you cannot meet that promise.
If you are just experimenting or trying to get something for nothing (synthetics- created out of thin air 'backing' your stablecoin), then don't make claims that it will be a dollar.
Also, selling unregistered securities is illegal. Operating a money exchange business is a crime without license.
Any defi project can all themselves a stablecoin. It is false advertising to say that you will maintain the peg to a dollar if you cannot meet that promise.
If you are just experimenting or trying to get something for nothing (synthetics- created out of thin air 'backing' your stablecoin), then don't make claims that it will be a dollar.
Also, selling unregistered securities is illegal. Operating a money exchange business is a crime without license.
Pardon the pop culture reference, but did the attack happen to change its value from one of itself to zero of itself and was performed by a bitter, but highly intelligent man in his 70s?
"Notably, this is not even the first time SDO was exploited. "
A week ago they had another issue.
A week ago they had another issue.
This was a stablecoin backed by two other stablecoins? What's the point? Now you have multiple points of failure and no upside.
It feels like the mainstream adoption of tokens is going to need the equivalent of FDIC coverage / credit card transaction dispute systems.
Is it theoretically (or in practice) possible to reverse / mitigate these kinds of token transfers? How would we even think about that?
Is it theoretically (or in practice) possible to reverse / mitigate these kinds of token transfers? How would we even think about that?
Zero counts as stable. Nothing further is ever going to happen to that price, I'll bet :)
[Mr. Burns looks through a portfolio of his old stocks]
Mr. Burns:
Hmm, let's see..."Confederated Slave holdings." How's that one holding up?
Blue Haired Lawyer:
It's, uh, steady.This situation resembles more that one episode of Rick and Morty where Rick changed value of blemflarck[0] from 1 to 0.
[0]https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/Blemflarck
[0]https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/Blemflarck
Reminds me of a quote from someone at work in regards to a big bug: it is a self correcting problem - people will stop using and paying for it and it will no longer be a problem!
Not really. If owning a coin becomes illegal it can fall below zero where you are paying someone to take your coins. Something similar to oil happened a while ago when storage had become an issue so prices fell below 0$
Oil is physical; it takes up space, and needs special protections to not pollute the container it's stored in.
Digital goods, meanwhile, can just be transferred permanently "into the void" (i.e. to an account without an associated key.)
Digital goods, meanwhile, can just be transferred permanently "into the void" (i.e. to an account without an associated key.)
This implies there isn’t any contract obligations/fine print at the point of link to real world / real identity (exchange).
In a hypothetical world, if coinbase made you sign things at signup and later demanded money for the upkeep of the network caused by your own transactions, I don’t think you can say no to that easily.
Compare this to an HOA demanding a $100k payment from each condo owner in the Miami condo repair / collapse story. Now let us assume that condo is worth less than $100k. I don’t think you can just walk away and abandon your condo.
It is not about storage cost and transportation - it is whatever contract you agreed to when taking the investment or liability.
In a hypothetical world, if coinbase made you sign things at signup and later demanded money for the upkeep of the network caused by your own transactions, I don’t think you can say no to that easily.
Compare this to an HOA demanding a $100k payment from each condo owner in the Miami condo repair / collapse story. Now let us assume that condo is worth less than $100k. I don’t think you can just walk away and abandon your condo.
It is not about storage cost and transportation - it is whatever contract you agreed to when taking the investment or liability.
To be clear, we're talking about doing this in advance of something bad like that happening. Legal damages like that mostly attach to a sort of "snapshot state" — whoever held each thing at the time that the damages happened. So you can't get away from the debt by throwing away the condo. But if you already had thrown away the condo before the building collapsed, I don't think it'd be your responsibility.
(Compare/contrast: what if, instead of burning the deed before the collapse, you instead transferred the deed to another condo owner? Or, say, to the HOA itself? Both of those are just as simple in the crypto case as "throwing away" the token is. In the real world, transfers like that need to be witnessed under contract law. But in the crypto world, most tokens don't have sophisticated logic for recipient-agreement-gating transfers like that. You can send most kinds of tokens to people whether they want them or not.)
(Compare/contrast: what if, instead of burning the deed before the collapse, you instead transferred the deed to another condo owner? Or, say, to the HOA itself? Both of those are just as simple in the crypto case as "throwing away" the token is. In the real world, transfers like that need to be witnessed under contract law. But in the crypto world, most tokens don't have sophisticated logic for recipient-agreement-gating transfers like that. You can send most kinds of tokens to people whether they want them or not.)
> Now let us assume that condo is worth less than $100k. I don’t think you can just walk away and abandon your condo.
You can if you go bankrupt. It's not like condo ownership is non-dischargeable in the same sense that, say, Superfund site ownership is.
You can if you go bankrupt. It's not like condo ownership is non-dischargeable in the same sense that, say, Superfund site ownership is.
You can absolutely walk away and abandon your condo in that case.
In Mimblewimble blockchains you cannot "burn" coins, as the receiver output must come with a rangeproof that also proves the ability to spend it.
Of course, you can still throw away the recipient keys after use; you just cannot prove that you did.
Of course, you can still throw away the recipient keys after use; you just cannot prove that you did.
Interesting didn’t know this. I always assumed it had to go to someone else. So digital currency can’t go below zero (or where you are paying someone to take it off you).
You can just send to an arbitrary public key whose private key is unknown and unknowable. Eg nobody knows the private key corresponding to "00000000000000000000000" or whatever. The chances of someone stumbling across the correct private key is ~zero, even if that address is otherwise valid.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3k8dnq/someone_has...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3k8dnq/someone_has...
If you delete your wallet, nobody has the money any more. “Sending it into the void” only helps with proving that fact to someone else.
There is no void for digital data, it's always some kind of data storage. RAM, HDD, SSD etc.
If the data is send to void it's gone.
If the data is send to void it's gone.
That is exactly the point of the comment you’re replying to.
Would you pay someone to take your $0 crypto coins away from you? That doesn't seem sustainable.
Why not just have a version 1 smart contract, that inside of it has an amount check that, if passed, rewrites the smart contract (or issues a new one) - version 2 - that rectifies the problem?
So people who "agree" with the change can just insta-exchange their cash, and those who don't can keep their cash on version 1. Then you don't have bugs like this as easily anymore.
This whole thing will no go very far without something like an update system. The old C programmers would laugh their ass of at a code-once-and-hope mentality.
EDIT: And by rewrite I mean like how OTA updates "rewrite" things, have a coin-bootloader or something that takes care of it.
So people who "agree" with the change can just insta-exchange their cash, and those who don't can keep their cash on version 1. Then you don't have bugs like this as easily anymore.
This whole thing will no go very far without something like an update system. The old C programmers would laugh their ass of at a code-once-and-hope mentality.
EDIT: And by rewrite I mean like how OTA updates "rewrite" things, have a coin-bootloader or something that takes care of it.
Any major smart contract updates over time, but in some cases they back themselves into a corner with a bug.
That makes sense, like a bug too scuffed to allow a recovery.
This coin made a mistake so its stakeholders pay the cost. People who had nothing to do with it are essentially unaffected.
In fiat world, if big industry or finance makes a mistake, the taxpayers are forced to bail them out instead of allowing them to fail, because of some perceived “systemic risk” that could take down the entire national economy.
In fiat world, if big industry or finance makes a mistake, the taxpayers are forced to bail them out instead of allowing them to fail, because of some perceived “systemic risk” that could take down the entire national economy.
Is there speculation, to match my own, that a fatal flaw in a stablecoin such as this was placed there on purpose ?
Probably not in this case as one wouldn't "liquidate" the stablecoin at merely $250k of assets ... but wouldn't this be a viable (albeit, nefarious) mechanism to defraud crypto investors ?
Probably not in this case as one wouldn't "liquidate" the stablecoin at merely $250k of assets ... but wouldn't this be a viable (albeit, nefarious) mechanism to defraud crypto investors ?
Post-mortem from the promoters: [1]
Not very helpful.
[1] https://safedollar.medium.com/safedollar-post-mortem-analysi...
Not very helpful.
[1] https://safedollar.medium.com/safedollar-post-mortem-analysi...
[deleted]
They've posted a post-mortem
https://safedollar.medium.com/safedollar-post-mortem-analysi...
Any coin with the word "Safe" in it, probably isn't safe.
A $250k market cap token goes under and it makes the front page of HN. I think that sheds light on both the bias and extent of knowledge of the average HNer with regard to blockchain tech.
Is this a bug in Polygon? Just this weekend I was listening to Software Engineering Daily "Polygon: Connecting Ethereum Compatible Blockchain Networks with Denis Ermolin" (from June 2 2021) [1]
There was a lot of talk about how secure Polygon is.
[1] https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2021/06/02/polygon-conn...
There was a lot of talk about how secure Polygon is.
[1] https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2021/06/02/polygon-conn...
No, this was purely a bug in the SafeDollar code.
I am not a good enough programmer to bet significant amounts of my life savings on my ability to write bug free code
The funniest, most ironic part is the ad at the top of the page, "Earn up to 12% APY on Bitcoin, Ethereum, USD, EUR, GBP, Stablecoins & more."
I'm so tired of people manipulating others and telling them to throw their savings into "Stablecoins" for 5-12% APR. Pure insanity.
I'm so tired of people manipulating others and telling them to throw their savings into "Stablecoins" for 5-12% APR. Pure insanity.
You could also say it only lost 1usd in relative value./s
I see a lot of negative comments about blockchains in general here. We are now trying to build a new world order and It is purely built on code. Of course, we will have issues like this. Nothing is perfect.
Isn’t that a tautology?
Great satire.
To be fair, zero is a very stable number.
tezos has formally verifiable smart contracts for exactly this reason
I lost money in this.
AMA I guess?
AMA I guess?
Very surprised MATIC value didn’t drop on this news
This has absolutely nothing to do with Polygon.
Buy the dip
/S
/S
[deleted]
So what type of exploit is this? Is this a problem with smart contracts? Could this be a problem for other cryptocurrencies with smart contracts, like Ethereum?
Using smart contracts, people are creating cryptocurrencies within an Ethereum network. Sort of a blockchain-within-a-blockchain. Right now, Polygon is a popular alternate Ethereum network for doing these.
The problem of course, is that once these contracts are published onto the network to create your new cryptocurrency token, it's very difficult (perhaps impossible?) to update them. And of course, if someone finds a vulnerability in one of the contracts and exploits it, it's game over. There's no reversing the transfer of tokens.
So to give a more explicit answer to your question, it's not a problem with Ethereum, but a problem with the contracts people are writing on the Ethereum network.
The problem of course, is that once these contracts are published onto the network to create your new cryptocurrency token, it's very difficult (perhaps impossible?) to update them. And of course, if someone finds a vulnerability in one of the contracts and exploits it, it's game over. There's no reversing the transfer of tokens.
So to give a more explicit answer to your question, it's not a problem with Ethereum, but a problem with the contracts people are writing on the Ethereum network.
This is most likely a problem with this specific smart contract, from what I understand, if the EVM on the "winning" miner were to produce a state transition that did not faithfully follow the SC, that block should be rejected.
Polygon is a little different, due to its proof of stake system, where there is no "winner" and the validators (Heimdall instances) "check" the work of the actual block producers (Bor instances). It also has a slasher-like element where only one Heimdall instance needs to prove that a block is incorrectly executed for it to be rejected, so a malicious actor would need to compromise all active Heimdall instances to be able to lie.
Polygon is a little different, due to its proof of stake system, where there is no "winner" and the validators (Heimdall instances) "check" the work of the actual block producers (Bor instances). It also has a slasher-like element where only one Heimdall instance needs to prove that a block is incorrectly executed for it to be rejected, so a malicious actor would need to compromise all active Heimdall instances to be able to lie.
It was an issue with a specific contract, not the contract VM or the chain itself. It's absolutely a problem for other poorly written contracts, but not a systemic problem for all smart contracts.
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Such stable, much wow. Doge approves!
I simply don't think it's possible for human beings to write good enough software for smart contracts.