Show HN: Aragon – Everything you need to run your company on Ethereum(aragon.one)
aragon.one
Show HN: Aragon – Everything you need to run your company on Ethereum
https://aragon.one
122 comments
> If I hire you via a crypto-contract but then you don't deliver the associated goods, what recourse do I have?
Isn't this sort of a "solved" question, in the sense that we know there's only so much a computer can do? The practical answers are, of course, reputation systems and incentivization systems like escrow. Both of those are areas of active research.
Isn't this sort of a "solved" question, in the sense that we know there's only so much a computer can do? The practical answers are, of course, reputation systems and incentivization systems like escrow. Both of those are areas of active research.
> one has the more general problem of enforceability of contracts, etc. If I hire you via a crypto-contract but then you don't deliver the associated goods, what recourse do I have?
I thought the point of crypto-contracts was to make enforcement as automatic as possible...if that is not fully true, are there any neutral verifications services that can hold things in escrow?
I thought the point of crypto-contracts was to make enforcement as automatic as possible...if that is not fully true, are there any neutral verifications services that can hold things in escrow?
A crypto-contract can't evaluate the work you've delivered. If we enter into some arbitrary crypto-contract for me to build you a chair in exchange for 20 currencies, and I bring you a stump I hacked out of the woods, there's no underlying system that can tell me to fuck off and that I'm not getting paid.
> there's no underlying system that can tell me to fuck off and that I'm not getting paid.
You are right. This is why these things will not go anywhere. Ultimately they need some kind of "back up"... For example, the system we currently have flows like so: Nation state Military > Federal Police > Local Police > Physical Intimidation via face to face meeting. At every step, stop when lawyers and/or politicians get involved.
You are right. This is why these things will not go anywhere. Ultimately they need some kind of "back up"... For example, the system we currently have flows like so: Nation state Military > Federal Police > Local Police > Physical Intimidation via face to face meeting. At every step, stop when lawyers and/or politicians get involved.
Well, you could have trusted third-party arbiters who would evaluate whether or not to release the funds on delivery of the good or service. But that brings on a whole new level of reputation-economy things you have to think about.
Then what's the point of doing the transaction with a digital contract in the first place? Weren't they meant to remove the need for trust or centralised arbitration?
We already have well-established mechanisms to arbitrate these kind of disagreements, e.g. courts. Adding blockchains to the process just makes it more complicated for no gain.
We already have well-established mechanisms to arbitrate these kind of disagreements, e.g. courts. Adding blockchains to the process just makes it more complicated for no gain.
A notable advantage of smart contracts is the flexibility to choose your own arbiter in advance -- a "chair expert" perhaps.
You can already do that. Parties entering into an analog contract can agree to binding arbitration with a mutually-agreed-on arbiter (like a "chair expert"), instead of resolution in the courts. Again: what is being gained by smart contracts?
A system could arise where things start small, and trust and reputation is built up over many transactions, similar to how money works post gold-standard. Then there's the idea of private blockchains, where actors already kinda trust each other anyway (transactions between banks) which may apply at some point. Gains would be mostly efficiency.
However when I tried some Ethereum development my impression was that most cryptocurrency people I met just hope that the value of their bitcoins goes up, or that they can sell related products or services. Many things seem to be financed by cryptocoin-money (not necessarily bad in itself) to keep the hype going, but it doesn't feel like a movement that wants to change things.
It's not like with open source where Stallman, Linus and many many other dreamt a dream but also built a lot of really high quality and important software. I don't see that kind of movement going on with Ethereum.
However when I tried some Ethereum development my impression was that most cryptocurrency people I met just hope that the value of their bitcoins goes up, or that they can sell related products or services. Many things seem to be financed by cryptocoin-money (not necessarily bad in itself) to keep the hype going, but it doesn't feel like a movement that wants to change things.
It's not like with open source where Stallman, Linus and many many other dreamt a dream but also built a lot of really high quality and important software. I don't see that kind of movement going on with Ethereum.
what is that is stopping you to do the same with normal contracts?
You can get the chair experts with a normal contract and a blockchain one.
arguably much, much, more easily with the former one.
To those who asked: A smart contract runs with the predictability of code. Courts don't. In particular, arbitration clauses are often not upheld.
Courts run with the predictability of law/codes...it's one of the reason 90% of cases settle without trial.
If an arbitration clause isn't held up, it's not because of unpredictability of the court it's because the clause runs afoul of the actual law/code the court applies which is predictable. Moreover, smart contracts are not going to permit parties to circumvent law, in other words a smart contract arbitration clause would not be enforceable in a jurisdiction they are not otherwise enforceable.
If an arbitration clause isn't held up, it's not because of unpredictability of the court it's because the clause runs afoul of the actual law/code the court applies which is predictable. Moreover, smart contracts are not going to permit parties to circumvent law, in other words a smart contract arbitration clause would not be enforceable in a jurisdiction they are not otherwise enforceable.
And with all the reliability and security of code. See, for example, the DAO fiasco.
Interestingly this can be considered both an argument against and in favour of smart contracts.
And how deep should that go? Pretty soon you will need arbitration for the arbiters.
Has no one addressed the basic need of a justice system with these crypto currencies?
Has no one addressed the basic need of a justice system with these crypto currencies?
Like I said,
> that brings on a whole new level of reputation-economy things you have to think about.
> that brings on a whole new level of reputation-economy things you have to think about.
How about some image processing/object recognition by standardized AI interfaces?
In other words, Eth and Aragon would work great, as soon as someone figures out how to build a strong AI that can arbitrate and enforce contracts?
We already have an inscrutable, unaccountable, super-intelligent system that can do that - the courts, the police...
We already have an inscrutable, unaccountable, super-intelligent system that can do that - the courts, the police...
I'm thinking something like unit tests but for real life objects, eg. the chair has to have four legs, specific length, etc. Then have mechanical turks "run" the tests.
Isn't this fully addressed by decentralized arbitrators and reputation systems, with a solid economic incentive setup? After all, we are just remaking human civilization on top of more efficient, modern platforms...the same old mechanisms will apply, they'll just (hopefully) work faster & better.
Thing is, that's not how it's pitched, and the trade-off needs to be worth it. I personally would rather we found a way to do verifiable e voting (no idea how though, some cryptographic way to sign the logic used to express the program so you can verify it's the thing everyone agreed on?) and remade our cooperation systems into a working version of libertarian communism/syndicalistic anarchism. IIRC rojave is trying something like that right now?
Rojava? Do you have a source? Interested in hearing more.
You can actually evaluate work you've delivered, but only for a very small subset of "work" - basically, things that can be represented and evaluated entirely with software. Here's an example: https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/02/26/zero-knowledge-conting...
Of course, this is entirely insufficient to do something like "put your corporation on the blockchain".
Of course, this is entirely insufficient to do something like "put your corporation on the blockchain".
you can also pay someone for the task of validating work that has been delivered
> there's no underlying system that can tell me to fuck off and that I'm not getting paid
No reason an arbitration clause couldn't be included in the contract.
No reason an arbitration clause couldn't be included in the contract.
Who or what backs up the arbitrator? This is why we have guns, police, prisons, and militaries and lawyers....
> Who or what backs up the arbitrator?
Ethereum contracts are turing complete. The payout function can be contingent on either the buyer or arbitrators releasing the funds. The arbitrators can be determined before hand or rely on an external contract that offers arbitration services. The possibilities are truly endless.
Ethereum contracts are turing complete. The payout function can be contingent on either the buyer or arbitrators releasing the funds. The arbitrators can be determined before hand or rely on an external contract that offers arbitration services. The possibilities are truly endless.
> The payout function can be contingent on either the buyer or arbitrators releasing the funds.
How long is the discovery period? What about "returns"? What if the arbitrator is working with the seller and scams me? When does "I have a big gun and I am not afraid to use it" come into the function?
> The arbitrators can be determined before hand or rely on an external contract that offers arbitration services.
And how much will those services cost? Who vets the arbitrator? What is my recourse if arbitration fails?
> The possibilities are truly endless.
Yes, I agree. This is just built for a place that does not yet exist.
How long is the discovery period? What about "returns"? What if the arbitrator is working with the seller and scams me? When does "I have a big gun and I am not afraid to use it" come into the function?
> The arbitrators can be determined before hand or rely on an external contract that offers arbitration services.
And how much will those services cost? Who vets the arbitrator? What is my recourse if arbitration fails?
> The possibilities are truly endless.
Yes, I agree. This is just built for a place that does not yet exist.
why do people in the ethereum community throw around the phrase "turing complete" with such abandon? can't you just say that you can create smart contracts with contingent on conditions? I don't see what this has to do with a turing machine besides the fact that you can script if-else in a contract?
It is arguably a flaw to write contracts in a turing complete language.
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If the arbitrator hits the "approve payout" (or "deny payout") API endpoint (or however this works), the e-currency gets cyber-delivered (or not) into my VR-wallet or whatever. I mentioned in another comment the headache that reputation systems required would bring.
Good point.
It might help if 'contracts' and payment amounts were small. In the Antifragile (book) sense: the fairness of any individual contract is fragile, rife with risk. However, in aggregation the system is antifragile (better than robust) as long as occasional bad deals are acceptable.
It might help if 'contracts' and payment amounts were small. In the Antifragile (book) sense: the fairness of any individual contract is fragile, rife with risk. However, in aggregation the system is antifragile (better than robust) as long as occasional bad deals are acceptable.
You just do exactly what ethereum did. Pay off a securities regulator in the smallest state of Switzerland to say it isn't a security while simultaneously getting an opinion letter in the US saying the same thing.
Sovereign sanctioning and alot of capital
SEC hasn't challenged it yet though but I mean, you can be rich and bring your project to the world.
Sovereign sanctioning and alot of capital
SEC hasn't challenged it yet though but I mean, you can be rich and bring your project to the world.
This is Jorge, Tech Lead at Aragon, a platform for creating companies on top of the Ethereum blockchain (DACs). Here is our launch post and mission statement: https://medium.com/aragondec/introducing-aragon-unstoppable-...
We are still early, but we are now in Alpha stage. We have published a small sneak peek of what we are building on aragon.one so you can try out how managing an Aragon company will be like.
Our ambition is for Aragon to be the backbone of a new generation of companies that will thrive in the new decentralized economy. We have focused on building a modular system, in the frontend and in the smart contracts, so modified versions for specific company types/industries could be build (pe. Aragon for Hedgefunds, Aragon for Non-Profits or Aragon for Open Source projects).
Aragon is a fully decentralized app that only needs having a connection to a Ethereum node in order for the core functionallity to work. We will be packaging it and distributing in a Electron binary for ease of use with non-iniciated users. We have integrated Metamask in Electron, so the app can be standalone (more on this soon).
Even though every screenshot in the website and the demo is live code running against the EVM (via TestRPC) and the alpha is working, we are not open sourcing the contracts for a couple of weeks (some cleaning and refactoring needs to be done before they are ready to be public). All the frontend code will be open source too, but we don't have a specific timeline for this. We are open source first and open source only, our core technology needs to be open source so it can be under the scrutiny needed for Aragon to be a secure technology.
We are still early, but we are now in Alpha stage. We have published a small sneak peek of what we are building on aragon.one so you can try out how managing an Aragon company will be like.
Our ambition is for Aragon to be the backbone of a new generation of companies that will thrive in the new decentralized economy. We have focused on building a modular system, in the frontend and in the smart contracts, so modified versions for specific company types/industries could be build (pe. Aragon for Hedgefunds, Aragon for Non-Profits or Aragon for Open Source projects).
Aragon is a fully decentralized app that only needs having a connection to a Ethereum node in order for the core functionallity to work. We will be packaging it and distributing in a Electron binary for ease of use with non-iniciated users. We have integrated Metamask in Electron, so the app can be standalone (more on this soon).
Even though every screenshot in the website and the demo is live code running against the EVM (via TestRPC) and the alpha is working, we are not open sourcing the contracts for a couple of weeks (some cleaning and refactoring needs to be done before they are ready to be public). All the frontend code will be open source too, but we don't have a specific timeline for this. We are open source first and open source only, our core technology needs to be open source so it can be under the scrutiny needed for Aragon to be a secure technology.
The launch post seems to say that Ethereum|Aragon can solve the nation state problem, taxes and a whole host of other "problems" associated with running a business.
How?
How does Aragon eliminate the IRS or DIAN if you are doing business in America or Colombia, respectively?
How does it eliminate regulations on interstate and international commerce?
What companies would actually use this to run their verses say Quickbooks, right now?
What companies have been built on Ethereum so far and how have the principals done with regard to taxes and tariffs?
How?
How does Aragon eliminate the IRS or DIAN if you are doing business in America or Colombia, respectively?
How does it eliminate regulations on interstate and international commerce?
What companies would actually use this to run their verses say Quickbooks, right now?
What companies have been built on Ethereum so far and how have the principals done with regard to taxes and tariffs?
It also includes:
You can replace every intermediary with a more efficient and fair decentralized solution.
How?
Decentralized solutions by their nature are less efficient than centralized solutions.
One of the most basic needs in humans’ lives is to transact. Create products, provide services, sell them to others. Add value to their lives. The market.
It’s the core of everything we do, from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep. The market system is how we live.
What does this mean? It sounds like something you'd hear on Silicon Valley. Very rah-rah but where's the substance?
I feel like this is a cool technical solution that is not realizing that the real issue is social and bureaucratic. The way they are pitching themselves doesn't give me faith that they have a solid plan. Hopefully that's not unfair.
You can replace every intermediary with a more efficient and fair decentralized solution.
How?
Decentralized solutions by their nature are less efficient than centralized solutions.
One of the most basic needs in humans’ lives is to transact. Create products, provide services, sell them to others. Add value to their lives. The market.
It’s the core of everything we do, from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep. The market system is how we live.
What does this mean? It sounds like something you'd hear on Silicon Valley. Very rah-rah but where's the substance?
I feel like this is a cool technical solution that is not realizing that the real issue is social and bureaucratic. The way they are pitching themselves doesn't give me faith that they have a solid plan. Hopefully that's not unfair.
Are you dogfooding Aragon? Do you get paid and manage your shares through it?
What language are the contracts written in? Do you have a specification of that language?
EDIT: Nevermind, I see in an another comment that you're using Solidity. Thanks for the answer!
Now I have a new question. What do you think about the claim that, "Solidity, while being an interesting proof of concept, is dangerously under-contained and very difficult to analyze statically." (http://www.stephendiehl.com/posts/smart_contracts.html)
EDIT: Nevermind, I see in an another comment that you're using Solidity. Thanks for the answer!
Now I have a new question. What do you think about the claim that, "Solidity, while being an interesting proof of concept, is dangerously under-contained and very difficult to analyze statically." (http://www.stephendiehl.com/posts/smart_contracts.html)
Disclaimer: I write and audit Solidity for a living.
The max-callstack issue isn't a problem anymore due to a change in the EVM.
TheDAO was hit with a reentrant call. It's pretty easy to avoid that class of bugs by either (1) putting any external calls (including ether transfers) after all state changes, or (2) using address.send instead of address.call.value. Also, TheDAO was a very convoluted contract; better coding practices help a lot. Any contract that's at all hard to understand is a huge red flag for me.
Solidity may not be a perfect language but it's rapidly improving, statically typed, and has a set of best practices which are fairly well known at this point. The current alternatives aren't nearly as well tested or reviewed, and don't have clear advantages anyway.
There are various experimental projects for more advanced functional-style languages but they're not ready yet. There's also someone at the Foundation working full-time on formal proof systems.
The max-callstack issue isn't a problem anymore due to a change in the EVM.
TheDAO was hit with a reentrant call. It's pretty easy to avoid that class of bugs by either (1) putting any external calls (including ether transfers) after all state changes, or (2) using address.send instead of address.call.value. Also, TheDAO was a very convoluted contract; better coding practices help a lot. Any contract that's at all hard to understand is a huge red flag for me.
Solidity may not be a perfect language but it's rapidly improving, statically typed, and has a set of best practices which are fairly well known at this point. The current alternatives aren't nearly as well tested or reviewed, and don't have clear advantages anyway.
There are various experimental projects for more advanced functional-style languages but they're not ready yet. There's also someone at the Foundation working full-time on formal proof systems.
Thanks for the info. Glad this stuff is being taken seriously by the core part of the community.
Are you paid in Eth or some other form of currency?
I'm paid a salary in fiat but the company I work for prefers payment in ETH, with Bitcoin its second choice, and our clients are generally happy with that.
I think that Solidity is quickly getting ready for prime time and in 2017 we will see tons of very big and high stake projects getting deployed.
That being said, there are already projects like http://rouleth.com that has been managing an over $100k bankroll with no issues for 8 months now.
To sum up, if the needed security measures are taken, you should be good. And we won't be encouraging anyone to run a company with Aragon in production for the next months until proper security audits have been done.
That being said, there are already projects like http://rouleth.com that has been managing an over $100k bankroll with no issues for 8 months now.
To sum up, if the needed security measures are taken, you should be good. And we won't be encouraging anyone to run a company with Aragon in production for the next months until proper security audits have been done.
Please consider trying to get off of Solidity at some point.
It doesn't matter how much auditing is done, if you're building on a shaky foundation mistakes will eventually slip through. Solidity is definitely a shaky foundation.
I really admire projects like yours for their daring, but that needs to be backed up with hard engineering work. I would hate to see smart contracts go down the path of the "Internet of things" -- finally succeeding only to cause more harm than good due to compounding security vulnerabilities.
It doesn't matter how much auditing is done, if you're building on a shaky foundation mistakes will eventually slip through. Solidity is definitely a shaky foundation.
I really admire projects like yours for their daring, but that needs to be backed up with hard engineering work. I would hate to see smart contracts go down the path of the "Internet of things" -- finally succeeding only to cause more harm than good due to compounding security vulnerabilities.
Solidity http://solidity.readthedocs.io
Solidity is not an ideal language, but I also think that the ~deep concern~ everyone has about it is overblown. C is a pretty problematic language too, but plenty of reliable software is built in it. Engineering and testing practices are more important than bikeshedding the language itself.
A flagship Solidity product has already been pwned for $50 million dollars, leading to a hard fork of Etherium. This is not fake "~deep concern~", this is a real problem.
It was a badly designed app written by a couple of over-eager developers who didn't have any security plan in place. If you blamed the language every time a website got hacked, there wouldn't be any languages left.
Conceptually I like the idea of running our company on this. But do you have any sort of insurance in case something goes horribly wrong?
I'd probably be willing to use this for a side project, but I feel like the prospect of saving even a substantial amount of legal fees isn't enough to risk everything on a new technology that would be a full-time job to actually understand.
That's not to say it's not a good idea, because it is a good idea, but there's a really big lift in terms of getting mainstream adoption.
I'd probably be willing to use this for a side project, but I feel like the prospect of saving even a substantial amount of legal fees isn't enough to risk everything on a new technology that would be a full-time job to actually understand.
That's not to say it's not a good idea, because it is a good idea, but there's a really big lift in terms of getting mainstream adoption.
I completely agree, insurance and proper bug bounty mechanisms are being worked on.
I think Ethereum undermined their whole reason for existence when they did a fork in response to a valid contract because enough people did not like the results.
The fact that they called it a hack when it explicitly followed the Ethereum guidelines calls into doubt the sincerity of the people behind Ethereum.
http://www.coindesk.com/understanding-dao-hack-journalists/
If people want to actually have malleable contracts in the case of fraud, the courts provide a much more accountable process that has had centuries of fine tuning.
The fact that they called it a hack when it explicitly followed the Ethereum guidelines calls into doubt the sincerity of the people behind Ethereum.
http://www.coindesk.com/understanding-dao-hack-journalists/
If people want to actually have malleable contracts in the case of fraud, the courts provide a much more accountable process that has had centuries of fine tuning.
This is why ethereum classic exists, but it's also shown that smart contacts are generally unreliable.
Random plug for non Turing complete smart contact systems like Decred.
(I don't own any decred, nor am I part of the team, I just idle in IRC.)
Random plug for non Turing complete smart contact systems like Decred.
(I don't own any decred, nor am I part of the team, I just idle in IRC.)
Is https://aragon.one itself using Aragon? If not, why?
Peculiar how author dodges this question, the answer is presumably no.
It's so disruptive even the creators choose to use the old "outdated" way it claims to be solving.
If you don't eat your own dog food it means you don't have confidence in it. So why push the garbage on to somebody else who will take all the risks?
How the heck does this make frontpage?
It's so disruptive even the creators choose to use the old "outdated" way it claims to be solving.
If you don't eat your own dog food it means you don't have confidence in it. So why push the garbage on to somebody else who will take all the risks?
How the heck does this make frontpage?
The current product is only considered by the creators to be alpha. They don't expect anyone else to found their business on it, and they aren't yet making their business rely on it.
Even if it does become more stable in the future, they haven't made the case that this is well suited for all businesses. It is designed to enable cooperation between stakeholders; a company with one major stakeholder has little need for it.
Even if it does become more stable in the future, they haven't made the case that this is well suited for all businesses. It is designed to enable cooperation between stakeholders; a company with one major stakeholder has little need for it.
Is there a way to pay for domain, DNS, and hosting costs with Ethereum? If so, one could build a wide-range of SaaS products that accept payment in Ethereum, and would be free of taxation and government regulation. While the SEC understandably exists to prevent defrauding of investors, this dashboard gives an investor perfect clarity into a company's financial strength and liabilities, and allows for an informed decision to be made without any official paperwork.
What would be really interesting is if some day you could buy a self-driving car with Ethereum. With an Uber-like app that accepts payment in Ethereum, and blockchain investments to rapidly scale the business up and reinvest profits, one could see a self-driving car company dominate the market in a far shorter time than it took Uber to do so.
It's even possible that some day we see a unicorn startup with a solo developer.
What would be really interesting is if some day you could buy a self-driving car with Ethereum. With an Uber-like app that accepts payment in Ethereum, and blockchain investments to rapidly scale the business up and reinvest profits, one could see a self-driving car company dominate the market in a far shorter time than it took Uber to do so.
It's even possible that some day we see a unicorn startup with a solo developer.
> While the SEC understandably exists to prevent defrauding of investors, this dashboard gives an investor perfect clarity into a company's financial strength and liabilities, and allows for an informed decision to be made without any official paperwork.
No, it gives insight into what has been done in Ethereum using the accounts tied to this "company". If investors are led to believe that this gives perfect clarity, that makes defrauding investors trivially easy by simply keeping things outside of what gets recorded. Keeping multiple books is the oldest trick in the book.
No, it gives insight into what has been done in Ethereum using the accounts tied to this "company". If investors are led to believe that this gives perfect clarity, that makes defrauding investors trivially easy by simply keeping things outside of what gets recorded. Keeping multiple books is the oldest trick in the book.
Namecoin exists, but governments are never gonna just be like "hey, don't pay taxes, no problem".
What would be really interesting is if some day you could buy a self-driving car with Ethereum. With an Uber-like app that accepts payment in Ethereum, and blockchain investments to rapidly scale the business up and reinvest profits, one could see a self-driving car company dominate the market in a far shorter time than it took Uber to do so.
Why can't a regular company do that? Blockchian payments are really the very least of your problems if you are trying to create a profitable self-driving car company.
What benefit does it offer other than being cool?
What would be really interesting is if some day you could buy a self-driving car with Ethereum. With an Uber-like app that accepts payment in Ethereum, and blockchain investments to rapidly scale the business up and reinvest profits, one could see a self-driving car company dominate the market in a far shorter time than it took Uber to do so.
Why can't a regular company do that? Blockchian payments are really the very least of your problems if you are trying to create a profitable self-driving car company.
What benefit does it offer other than being cool?
Yeah but what if a DAO doesn't have a physical office that can be shut down? It's very difficult to stop the spread of something people want to use, and will only become more so.
The DAO didn't need a physical office for it to be 'hacked' and drained.
And a car sharing scheme would need physical cars, making it pretty easy to take down the system or haul the car owners to court if the service is breaking laws.
And a car sharing scheme would need physical cars, making it pretty easy to take down the system or haul the car owners to court if the service is breaking laws.
Prototypes fail but clearly people haven't given up on the basic crypto/blockchain idea. A product or service that reliably delivers value (even if imperfectly) will hang around. Look at the draconian penalties for dealing cocaine, or the fairly draconian social sanctions of being caught in possession of it, and yet the trade thrives despite decades of aggressive interdiction. It's going to be politically much more difficult to indict someone for running a gardening or vehicle rental service than a drug kingpin; it's possible of course, but I don't remember a whole lot of public outrage over Kim Dotcom's supposedly nefarious activities.
Cocaine thrives because it is easy to conceal, easy to manufacture, has sky-high profit margins, no legal competition, and because you get paid in untraceable, unrecordable, launderable cash.
Stopping crypto-mixing is much easier then stopping money laundering.
Stopping crypto-mixing is much easier then stopping money laundering.
I'm sure it looks that way from the outside.
It ("The DAO") did need a mistake in how it was written though...
It's very easy to do, by arresting anyone who will accept transactions from you. The US government can destroy crypto-currencies overnight, by simply shutting down interfaces between the crypto-currency, and the rest of the world (exchanges and payment processors).
Prohibition drug war etc. suggests this is easier to say than it is to do. If a reliable way can be found to identify and isolate contractual defectors in a mutual system then the currency exchange becomes a sideshow.
This is incredibly easy to do, when 99.9% of the world relies on above-the-board banking to get shit done. My landlord doesn't accept rent payments in bitcoin, just like he doesn't accept payments in hooch, heroin, or pirate treasure - especially if it were illegal.
At some point, your internet crime ring will have to procure goods from the rest of the world. If the government wanted to crack down on it, they very easily could.
The underground drug markets only work because illegal drugs enjoy enormous profit margins (And because they are incredibly easy to conceal), due to lack of legal competition... And because, unlike crypto-currencies, cash transactions are common and untraceable (Which makes money laundering possible.) How is your illegal self-driving car company going to make those margins? How are they going to be able to afford to pay off all their suppliers (Who will charge a premium due to the legal risk), to keep your operations under wraps? How are you going to get customer to pay you, when it's illegal to drive your cars round town?
During prohibition, Al Capone was running moonshine, not beer. There weren't enough margins in beer, to risk federal prison. There aren't enough margins in <Whatever illegal bitcoin business you want to run, that doesn't involve a meth lab, or burning people alive in oil drums>, either.
At some point, your internet crime ring will have to procure goods from the rest of the world. If the government wanted to crack down on it, they very easily could.
The underground drug markets only work because illegal drugs enjoy enormous profit margins (And because they are incredibly easy to conceal), due to lack of legal competition... And because, unlike crypto-currencies, cash transactions are common and untraceable (Which makes money laundering possible.) How is your illegal self-driving car company going to make those margins? How are they going to be able to afford to pay off all their suppliers (Who will charge a premium due to the legal risk), to keep your operations under wraps? How are you going to get customer to pay you, when it's illegal to drive your cars round town?
During prohibition, Al Capone was running moonshine, not beer. There weren't enough margins in beer, to risk federal prison. There aren't enough margins in <Whatever illegal bitcoin business you want to run, that doesn't involve a meth lab, or burning people alive in oil drums>, either.
You're saying that there cannot possibly be large enough margins in anything to risk federal prison, which is self-evidently false. Your whole argument relies on declaring crypto currency as contraband, but contraband items are popular because they have inherent value to the consumers rather than simply being a medium of exchange.
It's much easier to proscribe the possession of child porn, hand grenades, or heroin because it's easy to demonstrate the harm of allowing free traffic in such items. Prohibiting voluntary arrangements that don't inherently have first-order harm effects is more difficult. Thus there isn't much opposition to heroin remaining a controlled substance - junkie life sucks - but prohibitions on cannabis use are collapsing left and right because people can see that smoking weed is unlikely to wreck your life.
Of course I don't expect you to get familiar with my comment history, but I'm heard all these basic roadblocks to crypto currencies because I've made many of these same arguments myself in the past. The existence of unsolved problems does not mean that the problems are insoluble.
It's much easier to proscribe the possession of child porn, hand grenades, or heroin because it's easy to demonstrate the harm of allowing free traffic in such items. Prohibiting voluntary arrangements that don't inherently have first-order harm effects is more difficult. Thus there isn't much opposition to heroin remaining a controlled substance - junkie life sucks - but prohibitions on cannabis use are collapsing left and right because people can see that smoking weed is unlikely to wreck your life.
Of course I don't expect you to get familiar with my comment history, but I'm heard all these basic roadblocks to crypto currencies because I've made many of these same arguments myself in the past. The existence of unsolved problems does not mean that the problems are insoluble.
> You're saying that there cannot possibly be large enough margins in anything to risk federal prison, which is self-evidently false.
No, I'm saying that outside of drugs, assassinations, and moonshine in countries following Sharia law, there aren't large enough margins in anything to risk federal prison.
> Your whole argument relies on declaring crypto currency as contraband, but contraband items are popular because they have inherent value to the consumers rather than simply being a medium of exchange.
Crypto currency is not contraband - but if you are using crypto currency to run a contraband business, you can be shut down by applying pressure on the parties you transact with. The easiest way to do this is by going after the exchanges.
For example, if the feds really wanted to take away all of Ross Ulbricht's money, they could make it illegal for a BTC exchange to accept in payment a bitcoin that, after a particular point in time, ever touched the Silk Road wallet. This would have made his coins de-facto unspendable - and the feds have the ability to do that, given that the exchanges interface with the USD economy.
> It's much easier to proscribe the possession of child porn, hand grenades, or heroin because it's easy to demonstrate the harm of allowing free traffic in such items. Prohibiting voluntary arrangements that don't inherently have first-order harm effects is more difficult.
That's correct. However, we are discussing using a blockchain to run a company that 'can't be shut down'. What exactly would you be selling, that makes it worth the trouble?
No, I'm saying that outside of drugs, assassinations, and moonshine in countries following Sharia law, there aren't large enough margins in anything to risk federal prison.
> Your whole argument relies on declaring crypto currency as contraband, but contraband items are popular because they have inherent value to the consumers rather than simply being a medium of exchange.
Crypto currency is not contraband - but if you are using crypto currency to run a contraband business, you can be shut down by applying pressure on the parties you transact with. The easiest way to do this is by going after the exchanges.
For example, if the feds really wanted to take away all of Ross Ulbricht's money, they could make it illegal for a BTC exchange to accept in payment a bitcoin that, after a particular point in time, ever touched the Silk Road wallet. This would have made his coins de-facto unspendable - and the feds have the ability to do that, given that the exchanges interface with the USD economy.
> It's much easier to proscribe the possession of child porn, hand grenades, or heroin because it's easy to demonstrate the harm of allowing free traffic in such items. Prohibiting voluntary arrangements that don't inherently have first-order harm effects is more difficult.
That's correct. However, we are discussing using a blockchain to run a company that 'can't be shut down'. What exactly would you be selling, that makes it worth the trouble?
I don't want to sound like a smartass but you need to get out more. There aren't large enough margins for you to imagine risking federal prison. Read enough criminal cases and you'll be astonished at what people get up to and the risks they're willing to accept.
There was a guy in my neighborhood who was a politician - first on the school board, then a city supervisor, then a state legislator. A real American success story - straight As in school, first from his community to succeed in getting elective office and worked very hard for his constituents, a guy who'd be outside the subway station at 6am during election season on his own to shake your hand and ask for your vote (which was the last time I met him in fact).
Anyway, he's currently sitting in federal prison for arms trading in automatic weapons and rocket-launchers which he bought from Islamic rebels in the Philippines and attempted to resell to the FBI. Why? Because under his pillar-of-the-community exterior, he secretly longed to live the life of a gangster/warlord and had dreams of disappearing off to the jungle to do it full time. I swear to you that I'm not exaggerating even a little bit.
Now for general adoption of a crypto currency you're right, most people don't want to deal with anything riskier than buying weed or driving on an expired license. But consider that it may only need a small number of people with a very different risk calculus to create a viable marketplace.
When I say crypto isn't contraband, I mean that people's attitude toward it is different. If you are caught with contraband lots of people will say 'tough, that contraband is illegal to possess for good reasons you bad person.' But if you are caught with illegal cryptocurrency that you acquired in some otherwise legal business activity (just getting paid in coin rather than $), that won't seem like that big of a moral issue to most people. That creates a problem for prosecutors, since jurors might choose not to convict.
That's correct. However, we are discussing using a blockchain to run a company that 'can't be shut down'. What exactly would you be selling, that makes it worth the trouble?
Nothing, necessarily. Suppose that rather than trafficking in goods my intention were to undermine existing currencies through legal competition. In a way the high utility of cryptocurrency for black-market transactions is a drawback because it delays popular adoption due to guilt by association. Then again, that's probably just as well while the technical and philosophical wrinkles are ironed out.
There was a guy in my neighborhood who was a politician - first on the school board, then a city supervisor, then a state legislator. A real American success story - straight As in school, first from his community to succeed in getting elective office and worked very hard for his constituents, a guy who'd be outside the subway station at 6am during election season on his own to shake your hand and ask for your vote (which was the last time I met him in fact).
Anyway, he's currently sitting in federal prison for arms trading in automatic weapons and rocket-launchers which he bought from Islamic rebels in the Philippines and attempted to resell to the FBI. Why? Because under his pillar-of-the-community exterior, he secretly longed to live the life of a gangster/warlord and had dreams of disappearing off to the jungle to do it full time. I swear to you that I'm not exaggerating even a little bit.
Now for general adoption of a crypto currency you're right, most people don't want to deal with anything riskier than buying weed or driving on an expired license. But consider that it may only need a small number of people with a very different risk calculus to create a viable marketplace.
When I say crypto isn't contraband, I mean that people's attitude toward it is different. If you are caught with contraband lots of people will say 'tough, that contraband is illegal to possess for good reasons you bad person.' But if you are caught with illegal cryptocurrency that you acquired in some otherwise legal business activity (just getting paid in coin rather than $), that won't seem like that big of a moral issue to most people. That creates a problem for prosecutors, since jurors might choose not to convict.
That's correct. However, we are discussing using a blockchain to run a company that 'can't be shut down'. What exactly would you be selling, that makes it worth the trouble?
Nothing, necessarily. Suppose that rather than trafficking in goods my intention were to undermine existing currencies through legal competition. In a way the high utility of cryptocurrency for black-market transactions is a drawback because it delays popular adoption due to guilt by association. Then again, that's probably just as well while the technical and philosophical wrinkles are ironed out.
and would be free of taxation and government regulation
Laws do not magically vanish when something goes into a blockchain.
Laws do not magically vanish when something goes into a blockchain.
Right. You can do all this stuff now, but with cash. If you don't want to report it, you don't have to. But you're still breaking the law and subject to serious penalty if the right people find out.
Also, all it takes is one lawsuit from an angry customer to pull back the veil on the ethereum libertopia, free of taxation and regulation, you've created.
Also, all it takes is one lawsuit from an angry customer to pull back the veil on the ethereum libertopia, free of taxation and regulation, you've created.
That'd be feasible, it just needs hosting companies willing to take payment in ether.
One the other hand, the Ethereum Name Service should be going live before long, and within the next year or so it should also have Swarm (distributed data storage) and Whisper (secure messaging) live as well, both integrated into Ethereum. The ultimate goal is that you wan't need web hosting.
One the other hand, the Ethereum Name Service should be going live before long, and within the next year or so it should also have Swarm (distributed data storage) and Whisper (secure messaging) live as well, both integrated into Ethereum. The ultimate goal is that you wan't need web hosting.
>It's even possible that some day we see a unicorn startup with a solo developer.
already possible. this allows you to create a ZERO person startup. you can be a contractor to a software algo.
already possible. this allows you to create a ZERO person startup. you can be a contractor to a software algo.
I can understand the disbelief over the "maximalist" approach that suggests that regulations, government intervention, taxes, etc. will be circumvented by decentralized companies running on blockchains. Yet I believe that this efforts should be encouraged as they are exploring the kind of wild, uncharted territory in which the most exciting innovations can unexpectedly arise.
I also believe that some of the tools these guys are building can be very useful for conventional companies too. There's a whole lot of bureaucracy and inefficiency in running a company.
See eShares and his elegant and simple solution for cap management. I believe there are many other areas in which similar improvements can be made, and software needed to run a blockchain company could also be used to improve procedures at conventional companies.
I also believe that some of the tools these guys are building can be very useful for conventional companies too. There's a whole lot of bureaucracy and inefficiency in running a company.
See eShares and his elegant and simple solution for cap management. I believe there are many other areas in which similar improvements can be made, and software needed to run a blockchain company could also be used to improve procedures at conventional companies.
So what happens when someone finds a flaw in the contract and empties you out?
Evidently, you hard fork the chain.
Ethereum proved that automated systems that serve human needs will eventually incur human intervention.
Ethereum proved that automated systems that serve human needs will eventually incur human intervention.
"automated systems that serve human needs will eventually incur human intervention" this is just wrong.
The world is moving towards more automated systems, the fact that there was one mistake at a given point in time doesn't mean anything.
By mistake I mean putting so much money on an unproved experiment.
The world is moving towards more automated systems, the fact that there was one mistake at a given point in time doesn't mean anything.
By mistake I mean putting so much money on an unproved experiment.
so if your account gets emptied by hackers, it's justified because this is just how decentralization works? Who is claiming this is "how the world works now" and who asked for a solution? It seems to me Ethereum and other products built on it solves problems imagined by the creators and balk when people poke holes at it, without responding with a modicum of rationality but a lot of self fulfilling prophecy.
Why would anyone expose themselves to more risks by using Aragon?
Why decentralize and create more problems when everybody has been using centralized systems without issues over the past few centuries?
What problem is it that you are solving with Aragon? I don't see one.
Better yet, are you running Aragon to run your company? This question has come up multiple times in the comments with no response. It's pretty telling.
Why would anyone expose themselves to more risks by using Aragon?
Why decentralize and create more problems when everybody has been using centralized systems without issues over the past few centuries?
What problem is it that you are solving with Aragon? I don't see one.
Better yet, are you running Aragon to run your company? This question has come up multiple times in the comments with no response. It's pretty telling.
Oh yeah, the number of questions in this thread without answers should tell you everything you need to know about Aragon.
Any founder with a legit business who shows his project to Hacker News and gets ~40 some odd people to comment on it would almost certainly want to keep up that conversation.
Any founder with a legit business who shows his project to Hacker News and gets ~40 some odd people to comment on it would almost certainly want to keep up that conversation.
That's why initiatives such as https://openzeppelin.org are needed.
We build on top of them and all our contracts will be throughly audited before going into production
We build on top of them and all our contracts will be throughly audited before going into production
Regardless of how audited the code is, the DAO fiasco showed that the Ethereum miners will modify the "immutable" blockchain if it reaches an unpopular result, even when the bug is in a contract and not Ethereum itself.
"It may take a while to load – beware of the bugs and glitches. Chrome-only for now"
Says so much with so little.
Says so much with so little.
I don't get the "shareholder" scenario. How can this work with any legal and/or financial/banking regulations?
Or the "Adding a new employee to your payroll is as easy as creating a recurring payment" scenario. Good luck having the Spanish Social Security Institute accept the mandatory monthly payments (cotizaciones) in ETH...
Bad assumption there, Aragon companies will be able to handle tokenized fiat (USD, EUR, etc). Santander is working on a stable coin project to tokenize EUR and USD http://www.coindesk.com/santander-vies-become-first-bank-iss...
Your link talks about a conceptual project that isn't in any way running yet nor has been approved by the National Bank of Spain. How can Aragon companies comply with their INSS obligations today?
It is a responsibility of the individual to follow the laws of her jurisdiction. It is a global project, so we won't be working with every local regulatory body.
Aragon is creating a framework (as an open source project) for running Blockchain companies. We don't provide legal advice nor services, we don't take any responsibility for a hypothetic bad usage of our software.
Aragon is creating a framework (as an open source project) for running Blockchain companies. We don't provide legal advice nor services, we don't take any responsibility for a hypothetic bad usage of our software.
Then I don't see why you choose to say "Death to paperwork. Avoid useless intermediaries" in your website if I still have to do all the required paperwork, same as before, plus now I need more useless intermediaries to convert ETH into fiat to pay the taxman, the bookkeeper...
Then where exactly do you believe people can legally use this?
People say 'stable coins' as if it's a simple matter to create them. There have already been several cryptocurrencies that were meant to be locked in value to a real-world currency or commodity. They all fail in the end, and any system relying on them will collapse when the values diverge.
You cannot perfectly link a real world item to a digital asset without losing the 'trust-free' nature of cryptocoins. You always end up having to trust someone. And once you do that, you've lost all of the advantages of the digital asset.
You cannot perfectly link a real world item to a digital asset without losing the 'trust-free' nature of cryptocoins. You always end up having to trust someone. And once you do that, you've lost all of the advantages of the digital asset.
What would the stable coin look like? I mean, we already have 700+[1] "coins." we are way passed the ridiculous stage on that front.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cryptocurrencies
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cryptocurrencies
A stable coin is a token that, using some mechanism, is able to hold a stable value. The most prominent group trying to make this work using ethereum, I think, is http://makerdao.com/docs/.
A stable coin is a crypto asset that is backed by a real value.
If you own 1 EthUSD, there is a warranty that someone will give you 1 USD for that token
If you own 1 EthUSD, there is a warranty that someone will give you 1 USD for that token
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I know this is old news, but I still have to say this:
So if someone installs malware on your laptop, they get to own your shares forever? Living dangerously, man!
So if someone installs malware on your laptop, they get to own your shares forever? Living dangerously, man!
That's why the needed security measures need to be in place.
Using a hardware wallet like Ledger rules that scenario out.
Using a hardware wallet like Ledger rules that scenario out.
You can't trust hardware wallets either - people have been handing out free hardware wallets at conferences that steal the user's coins.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/caution-scammers-can-steal-yo...
https://cointelegraph.com/news/caution-scammers-can-steal-yo...
Until is gets stolen and you can't prove you own anything, or?
That's why you have backups.
I agree that having full control over your identity has risks as well as benefits, though. I expect that we'll eventually see security providers arise that have user-friendly account recovery tools. Due to the plug-and-play architecture of blockchains, that sort of thing will work automatically without any need for organizations like Aragon to integrate with them.
I agree that having full control over your identity has risks as well as benefits, though. I expect that we'll eventually see security providers arise that have user-friendly account recovery tools. Due to the plug-and-play architecture of blockchains, that sort of thing will work automatically without any need for organizations like Aragon to integrate with them.
Exactly.
So if Facebook ran on Aragon, and the shares got hijacked, tough shit? Zuckerberg can't prove himself? Some guy in Yekaterinburg is the new CEO?
If history is any indication, you collude with the miners and hard-fork.
They have incentive to do that, because their work becomes worthless if ETH were to lose value because that kind of theft would destroy user confidence in the cryptocurrency.
I think the rest of the world would call that state of affairs a 'bubble'.
They have incentive to do that, because their work becomes worthless if ETH were to lose value because that kind of theft would destroy user confidence in the cryptocurrency.
I think the rest of the world would call that state of affairs a 'bubble'.
Now what do you do once a court hands down a ruling requiring said shares be transferred to a given person?
Guess what, they're not going to accept "we can't" as a valid answer.
Guess what, they're not going to accept "we can't" as a valid answer.
To repeat a comment I heard elsewhere -
Just as Bitcoin lovers are learning the hard way why we have banking regulations, so are Ethereum followers learning the hard way why we have courts.
Just as Bitcoin lovers are learning the hard way why we have banking regulations, so are Ethereum followers learning the hard way why we have courts.
Oh dear...
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Looks like they're using unmodified semantic ui[1] based from their screenshot.
1. semantic-ui.com
1. semantic-ui.com
Coolest thing I've seen today, if only because my last name is Aragon.
why does your "press" link to a public dropbox folder for branding material? this is all so amateur
invite_limit_reached when I try to sign up :-/
As enthusiastic as I remain about the overall premise of equity replacements issued on cryptographically secure ledgers (including Etheruem, which I started with by running the educational channel Ethercasts), I don't see anything in this presentation that indicates that the massive challenges regarding nation-state regulation have been solved.
Even were one to go on the premise that one can effectively run this in a sandbox away from standard nation-state regulation, one has the more general problem of enforceability of contracts, etc. If I hire you via a crypto-contract but then you don't deliver the associated goods, what recourse do I have?
This and related effects caused ~2 years of delays in my own implementation.
I'll note I remain optimistic and positive about all related efforts in this field.