4 ms·

Haven't read it, but since that quote totally rings true to me, I'll step up to the plate: I think they're trying to channel the idea that blockchains are to "a

by patcon 10y ago

Haven't read it, but since that quote totally rings true to me, I'll step up to the plate: I think they're trying to channel the idea that blockchains are to "agreements" what the internet was to "communications", particularly in terms of democratization. The internet used to provide low-barrier super-human communication abilities, but only in very limited contexts -- possibly beside a giant mainframe, and only able to talk with other giant mainframes. Now that we have instant comms in our pockets and on our wrists all the time, the effects are pretty expansive. Blockchains are not yet ubiquitous, but when they are (in every device and underlying many services we use), every person will have the infrastructure to create and maintain complex agreements for near-zero costs. (Financial agreements and otherwise.) This will be pretty transformative. I assume ZCash is acknowledging that privacy is a critical piece of that transformation in organizational structure for society. Kinda like how ubiquitous communications are almost pointless without the possibility of E2E encryption. But this is a lot of speculation given that I haven't read the linked article ;)

wslh 10y ago
> Blockchains are not yet ubiquitous, but when they are (in every device and underlying many services we use), every person will have the infrastructure to create and maintain complex agreements for near-zero costs. (Financial agreements and otherwise.) This will be pretty transformative. Sorry, but this is wishful thinking. The simple question about how you can enforce agreements running in blockchains can't be answered. In the real world you have the military or police force while in the blockchain itself you are pretty limited. On the other hand external oracles are the weakest part of the blockchain system. If they are hacked you hacked the agreements. I think the blockchain/cryptocurrency/smart-contracts/app-coin scene is really exciting but the connection with the real world is problematic, more when the financial institutions are enforcing AML/KYC/etc
- aianus 10y ago
  > The simple question about how you can enforce agreements running in blockchains can't be answered. Check out https://www.augur.net/ https://www.augur.net/ for an attempt at answering that question. They crowdsource the outcomes of the various bets from people holding REP tokens. REP holders have a financial incentive to act honestly to increase or maintain the value of their REP.
  - wslh 10y ago
    I know Augur, but what part of Augur is an attempt to answering my question?
    - aianus 10y ago
      They developed a way of enforcing agreements (bets) made on a blockchain without courts, police, military, or easy-to-hack external oracles.
      - wslh 10y ago
        Augur doesn't answer my original concern. If you have a smart contract between, for example, two companies, that information is private and it doesn't work like a popular baseball game. If one company doesn't follow the contract you need to solve the problem in the real world. Also, we don't know yet how public blockchains (where Augur runs) work with State or powerful actor attacks, when the incentives are not purely financial.
        etherael 10y ago
        One way you could solve the problem in the real world is track down the delinquent counterparty to the contract, drag them into an expensive legal system, subject them to the costs thereof, levy a penalty on them, hope that they pay it, in the even that they do not or cannot, seize their assets, in the event that they have none or you cannot, punish them with prison, in the event that they resist, kill them. Sure, that's the traditionally accepted way to go about solving the problem in the real world. But there are many other ways to solve the same problems that we're all intimately familiar with by now based around reputation systems. When it becomes public that a counterparty to a contract has engaged in delinquency, they suffer a reputational hit. If their reputation has value (and there is nothing about pseudonymous entities that mean that they cannot accrue reputational value, rating systems work on darknet markets quite well and have since their inception), and the amount of damage to their reputation is higher cost than making good on the contract, then they will make good on the contract (and even if they can't, you've punished their delinquency by damaging their reputation, instead of dragging them through an expensive inefficient corrupt legal system involving violence as the final sanction). All sharing economy and peer to peer systems that currently exist work on systems of this kind, and cryptocurrencies to the extent that reputations are valued and contracts made similarly so, and this will only become more prevalent as time goes by. Not everything requires recourse to violence.

by patcon 10y ago

wslh 10y ago

> Blockchains are not yet ubiquitous, but when they are (in every device and underlying many services we use), every person will have the infrastructure to create and maintain complex agreements for near-zero costs. (Financial agreements and otherwise.) This will be pretty transformative. Sorry, but this is wishful thinking. The simple question about how you can enforce agreements running in blockchains can't be answered. In the real world you have the military or police force while in the blockchain itself you are pretty limited. On the other hand external oracles are the weakest part of the blockchain system. If they are hacked you hacked the agreements. I think the blockchain/cryptocurrency/smart-contracts/app-coin scene is really exciting but the connection with the real world is problematic, more when the financial institutions are enforcing AML/KYC/etc

aianus 10y ago
> The simple question about how you can enforce agreements running in blockchains can't be answered. Check out https://www.augur.net/ https://www.augur.net/ for an attempt at answering that question. They crowdsource the outcomes of the various bets from people holding REP tokens. REP holders have a financial incentive to act honestly to increase or maintain the value of their REP.
- wslh 10y ago
  I know Augur, but what part of Augur is an attempt to answering my question?
  - aianus 10y ago
    They developed a way of enforcing agreements (bets) made on a blockchain without courts, police, military, or easy-to-hack external oracles.
    - wslh 10y ago
      Augur doesn't answer my original concern. If you have a smart contract between, for example, two companies, that information is private and it doesn't work like a popular baseball game. If one company doesn't follow the contract you need to solve the problem in the real world. Also, we don't know yet how public blockchains (where Augur runs) work with State or powerful actor attacks, when the incentives are not purely financial.
      - etherael 10y ago
        One way you could solve the problem in the real world is track down the delinquent counterparty to the contract, drag them into an expensive legal system, subject them to the costs thereof, levy a penalty on them, hope that they pay it, in the even that they do not or cannot, seize their assets, in the event that they have none or you cannot, punish them with prison, in the event that they resist, kill them. Sure, that's the traditionally accepted way to go about solving the problem in the real world. But there are many other ways to solve the same problems that we're all intimately familiar with by now based around reputation systems. When it becomes public that a counterparty to a contract has engaged in delinquency, they suffer a reputational hit. If their reputation has value (and there is nothing about pseudonymous entities that mean that they cannot accrue reputational value, rating systems work on darknet markets quite well and have since their inception), and the amount of damage to their reputation is higher cost than making good on the contract, then they will make good on the contract (and even if they can't, you've punished their delinquency by damaging their reputation, instead of dragging them through an expensive inefficient corrupt legal system involving violence as the final sanction). All sharing economy and peer to peer systems that currently exist work on systems of this kind, and cryptocurrencies to the extent that reputations are valued and contracts made similarly so, and this will only become more prevalent as time goes by. Not everything requires recourse to violence.