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The DAO contract was not invalidated. It is still there, on the blocks where it was deployed. The fact that the people running the nodes stopped seeing that fo

The DAO contract was not invalidated. It is still there, on the blocks where it was deployed. The fact that the people running the nodes stopped seeing that fork of the chain as the interesting one is distributed consensus at work. Anyone that wants to keep observing that original fork can do so, that fork is actually alive in the form of Ethereum Classic. Ethereum was forked after the DAO fail because people saw more value in a forked chain with new rules. Speaking about contract reversals or invalidations is misleading. That is simply not possible, because Blockchain. And while anyone can decide to fork a blockchain, building consensus around the fork is what gives it its value. The DAO was a marketing horror because it promised a world ruled by code, built on top of blockchain tech. Blockchains, though, don't run on code but on consensus.

tom_mellior 9y ago
> that fork of the chain [...] is distributed consensus at work If you have two consensuses, you don't have consensus. (Edit: Yes, I know, my quote is misleading, but I claim that this distorted version does somewhat represent the gist of the author's words.)
lmm 9y ago
Again, though, if I want the interpretation of my contracts to boil down to what some group of people weighted by some measure of power thinks, I've got more faith in a conventional country that allocates power to elected officials etc. than a loose confederation of anonymous drug barons weighted by whoever bought new hardware most recently.
runeks 9y ago
What value does the Ethereum protocol provide when a disagreement splits the network in two, without any recourse for either of the parties involved? Which hard social/computer science problems are solved through a "consensus" algorithm that essentially constitutes denying the existence of those who disagree? With Bitcoin, determining whether a fork is successful is very simple: are the tokens on its blockchain as liquid as those on the Bitcoin one? If they are, they are just as useful for transferring value as the "original" Bitcoin. What metric would we use to determine whether an Ethereum fork is successful or not? If nothing is lost when a consensus algorithm fails to establish consensus, what value did it provide in the first place? Market cap is an arbitrary measure because, in and of itself, it solves nothing. At any time, I can fork Ethereum with a buddy of mine, trade the resulting tokens at whichever price the original Ethers trade at, and the market cap would be the same. Or, alternatively, trade them at 1/1000 the Ether price, but change the protocol such that 1000 times as many exist.
- vvillena 9y ago
  >What value does the Ethereum protocol provide when a disagreement splits the network in two, without any recourse for either of the parties involved? Don't give splits such importance. The nature of blockchains means that the network is being constantly forked into many chains at its tip. It doesn't matter which protocol is running on that blockchain. >Which hard social/computer science problems are solved through a "consensus" algorithm that essentially constitutes denying the existence of those who disagree? Existance is not being denied. The chain is still there. The problem is that the rest of the people, a majority of nodes, prefer another version of the chain. >With Bitcoin, determining whether a fork is successful is very simple: are the tokens on its blockchain as liquid as those on the Bitcoin one? If they are, they are just as useful for transferring value as the "original" Bitcoin. > >What metric would we use to determine whether an Ethereum fork is successful or not? If nothing is lost when a consensus algorithm fails to establish consensus, what value did it provide in the first place? Proof of Work consensus algorithms don't "fail" to establish consensus. They are designed to swiftly choose one of many possible chains, based on a few simple parameters (the most important one being the amount of work needed to create the chain). That said, value is an off-chain concept. Just as US dollars have value because we all know they are widely accepted, Ethereum has value because there is a team of developers plus a big community plus a lot of nodes, and all that together allows some use cases that make Ethereum have value. Ethereum Classic has less value because it is not as widely accepted. Bitcoin has a lot of value because as of now it is the most popular cryptocurrency. Nothing about this has to do with the tech itself, but with the way we see the tech.

tom_mellior 9y ago

> that fork of the chain [...] is distributed consensus at work If you have two consensuses, you don't have consensus. (Edit: Yes, I know, my quote is misleading, but I claim that this distorted version does somewhat represent the gist of the author's words.)

lmm 9y ago

Again, though, if I want the interpretation of my contracts to boil down to what some group of people weighted by some measure of power thinks, I've got more faith in a conventional country that allocates power to elected officials etc. than a loose confederation of anonymous drug barons weighted by whoever bought new hardware most recently.

runeks 9y ago

What value does the Ethereum protocol provide when a disagreement splits the network in two, without any recourse for either of the parties involved? Which hard social/computer science problems are solved through a "consensus" algorithm that essentially constitutes denying the existence of those who disagree? With Bitcoin, determining whether a fork is successful is very simple: are the tokens on its blockchain as liquid as those on the Bitcoin one? If they are, they are just as useful for transferring value as the "original" Bitcoin. What metric would we use to determine whether an Ethereum fork is successful or not? If nothing is lost when a consensus algorithm fails to establish consensus, what value did it provide in the first place? Market cap is an arbitrary measure because, in and of itself, it solves nothing. At any time, I can fork Ethereum with a buddy of mine, trade the resulting tokens at whichever price the original Ethers trade at, and the market cap would be the same. Or, alternatively, trade them at 1/1000 the Ether price, but change the protocol such that 1000 times as many exist.

vvillena 9y ago
>What value does the Ethereum protocol provide when a disagreement splits the network in two, without any recourse for either of the parties involved? Don't give splits such importance. The nature of blockchains means that the network is being constantly forked into many chains at its tip. It doesn't matter which protocol is running on that blockchain. >Which hard social/computer science problems are solved through a "consensus" algorithm that essentially constitutes denying the existence of those who disagree? Existance is not being denied. The chain is still there. The problem is that the rest of the people, a majority of nodes, prefer another version of the chain. >With Bitcoin, determining whether a fork is successful is very simple: are the tokens on its blockchain as liquid as those on the Bitcoin one? If they are, they are just as useful for transferring value as the "original" Bitcoin. > >What metric would we use to determine whether an Ethereum fork is successful or not? If nothing is lost when a consensus algorithm fails to establish consensus, what value did it provide in the first place? Proof of Work consensus algorithms don't "fail" to establish consensus. They are designed to swiftly choose one of many possible chains, based on a few simple parameters (the most important one being the amount of work needed to create the chain). That said, value is an off-chain concept. Just as US dollars have value because we all know they are widely accepted, Ethereum has value because there is a team of developers plus a big community plus a lot of nodes, and all that together allows some use cases that make Ethereum have value. Ethereum Classic has less value because it is not as widely accepted. Bitcoin has a lot of value because as of now it is the most popular cryptocurrency. Nothing about this has to do with the tech itself, but with the way we see the tech.