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I agree with this but you might be missing my point. Crypto as a store of value and the ability to transfer funds is nice and all but it's not the big picture.

I agree with this but you might be missing my point. Crypto as a store of value and the ability to transfer funds is nice and all but it's not the big picture. I think focusing on that you rightly see limited practical application in large parts of the world, such as the USA. The real revolution is in smart contracts and virtual machines that run on a blockchain and the ability to define ownership of a distributed organization to distribute profits accordingly. Blockchains on blockchains that having turing complete contracts that can guarantee there isn't even the ability to cheat the distributed, mainly anonymous organization participants. We aren't even close to that - it still takes an incredibly suspect ICO to raise money by selling stake for a top level coin in which they will inevitably have to convert partially to fiat and the vast potential for scams there. But the smart contract can be programmatically limited and only release funds over time and only continue to when certain events have taken place, and refund otherwise, etc. I guess I just see the vast potential here. More infrastructure supporting things is required and I'm not sure what that is but someone will discover these pieces. I see many more Asian and European groups trying to build these types of things today. Maybe it's out of necessity as well since there isn't a vast source of wealth available to fund these crazy, new ideas.

FussyZeus 9y ago
> Maybe it's out of necessity as well since there isn't a vast source of wealth available to fund these crazy, new ideas. I think it's more out of necessity because of the lack of the comprehensive and (relatively) solid way that you can litigate in the USA and European Union when business dealings go south. Capitalism in the East and the Soviet Bloc countries is improving their lives but it's also shockingly unregulated, arguably similar to the US in the roaring 20's. Back then that meant contracts were enforced at the barrel of a gun, but while the contractual law litigation doesn't work well in those countries, they can handle murderers pretty well so instead they find the cryptocurrencies attractive because it gives them options to protect their assets in a way that is immune to violence or petty theft. At least that's my 0.02.
root_axis 9y ago
Please offer a practical example of how smart contracts are useful.
- corv 9y ago
  ICO's are clearly enjoying a use. Largest crowdfunding in history can't be ignored - whether it ends in tears for most investors is another matter entirely.
  - root_axis 9y ago
    I asked for a practical example. Just because a bunch of people decided to spend their money on internet tokens does not mean it is useful. How is it useful?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - nemo44x 9y ago
      Groups of actors across the world can make an agreement that is enforced by a smart contract. When an actor fails to live up their obligation they are refused payment. There is no way to take off with something that is not yours. There is no reliable or efficient way to cheat. You don't have to know the other actors you are making an agreement for something with. Can you do this now without a smart contract? Of course. The usefulness is in that it's universally visible and lowers the barrier to entry and is far less complex.
      - aaron-lebo 9y ago
        If it's so uncheatable, why did the original DAO get hacked?
        mr_spothawk 9y ago
        IIRC, It wasn't "hacked". Rather the contract was written incorrectly from the outset, and the "hacker" merely used the withdraw method to ... withdraw.
coldtea 9y ago
>The real revolution is in smart contracts and virtual machines that run on a blockchain and the ability to define ownership of a distributed organization to distribute profits accordingly. Blockchains on blockchains that having turing complete contracts that can guarantee there isn't even the ability to cheat the distributed, mainly anonymous organization participants. Sounds like something utterly complex even to describe, so imagine how more difficult it is for any average person to identify as a problem they have and care about.
- Animats 9y ago
  "Turing complete contracts" were a terrible idea, as the DAO debacle and subsequent fork demonstrated. If the people behind the DAO hadn't been the same people as the people behind Etherium, they would have been screwed. Machine-readable contracts need to be much simpler and much clearer to work. I've suggested decision tables as a format; those are declarative, guaranteed to terminate, and have a simple chart form that's easy to understand. Yes, they're more limited.
  - thisjepisje 9y ago
    You can implement decision tables on top of a turing-complete language.
    - Animats 9y ago
      You can't be sure they're implemented properly. Or what if they run out of "fuel"? Like the DAO's code. It's not enough that contracts execute. They have to be amenable to audit.
- nemo44x 9y ago
  Make it better. Programming with switches was hard. High level languages were built. Managing memory was hard. Higher level languages were built. There's this amazing lack of vision and inability to see that things can and will be innovated on. Why would it be anywhere near perfect by this iteration? Why would you expect that? Also in terms of complexity - have you ever read an actual legal contract? Do you think 99.9% of people understand that?
davidgerard 9y ago
> The real revolution is in smart contracts and virtual machines that run on a blockchain and the ability to define ownership of a distributed organization to distribute profits accordingly. e.g., the $50 million distributed to The DAO hacker. The DAO was the first famous smart contract, on the first popular smart contract platform. Every objection to smart contracts in the past couple of decades (computer programs model real law badly, immutability means you need to be a perfect programmer, immutability copes badly with changes in circumstances) came true, bang bang bang. Though I think even blockchain objectors were surprised when Ethereum came up with a new one: your smart contract is IMMUTABLE right up to the moment the big boys are in danger of losing money. Later of course we were reminded of the programming perfection requirement extending to all layers of the stack, e.g. the Solidity compiler bug that meant that a mathematically-proven-perfect contract could have a 'sploit. Smart contracts are a terrible and stupid idea, and The DAO should have put the idea firmly in the bin. That it didn't is a testament to human gullibility and the power of wishful thinking rather than the value of smart contracts.

FussyZeus 9y ago

> Maybe it's out of necessity as well since there isn't a vast source of wealth available to fund these crazy, new ideas. I think it's more out of necessity because of the lack of the comprehensive and (relatively) solid way that you can litigate in the USA and European Union when business dealings go south. Capitalism in the East and the Soviet Bloc countries is improving their lives but it's also shockingly unregulated, arguably similar to the US in the roaring 20's. Back then that meant contracts were enforced at the barrel of a gun, but while the contractual law litigation doesn't work well in those countries, they can handle murderers pretty well so instead they find the cryptocurrencies attractive because it gives them options to protect their assets in a way that is immune to violence or petty theft. At least that's my 0.02.

root_axis 9y ago

Please offer a practical example of how smart contracts are useful.

corv 9y ago
ICO's are clearly enjoying a use. Largest crowdfunding in history can't be ignored - whether it ends in tears for most investors is another matter entirely.
- root_axis 9y ago
  I asked for a practical example. Just because a bunch of people decided to spend their money on internet tokens does not mean it is useful. How is it useful?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - nemo44x 9y ago
    Groups of actors across the world can make an agreement that is enforced by a smart contract. When an actor fails to live up their obligation they are refused payment. There is no way to take off with something that is not yours. There is no reliable or efficient way to cheat. You don't have to know the other actors you are making an agreement for something with. Can you do this now without a smart contract? Of course. The usefulness is in that it's universally visible and lowers the barrier to entry and is far less complex.
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      If it's so uncheatable, why did the original DAO get hacked?
      - mr_spothawk 9y ago
        IIRC, It wasn't "hacked". Rather the contract was written incorrectly from the outset, and the "hacker" merely used the withdraw method to ... withdraw.

coldtea 9y ago

>The real revolution is in smart contracts and virtual machines that run on a blockchain and the ability to define ownership of a distributed organization to distribute profits accordingly. Blockchains on blockchains that having turing complete contracts that can guarantee there isn't even the ability to cheat the distributed, mainly anonymous organization participants. Sounds like something utterly complex even to describe, so imagine how more difficult it is for any average person to identify as a problem they have and care about.

Animats 9y ago
"Turing complete contracts" were a terrible idea, as the DAO debacle and subsequent fork demonstrated. If the people behind the DAO hadn't been the same people as the people behind Etherium, they would have been screwed. Machine-readable contracts need to be much simpler and much clearer to work. I've suggested decision tables as a format; those are declarative, guaranteed to terminate, and have a simple chart form that's easy to understand. Yes, they're more limited.
- thisjepisje 9y ago
  You can implement decision tables on top of a turing-complete language.
  - Animats 9y ago
    You can't be sure they're implemented properly. Or what if they run out of "fuel"? Like the DAO's code. It's not enough that contracts execute. They have to be amenable to audit.
nemo44x 9y ago
Make it better. Programming with switches was hard. High level languages were built. Managing memory was hard. Higher level languages were built. There's this amazing lack of vision and inability to see that things can and will be innovated on. Why would it be anywhere near perfect by this iteration? Why would you expect that? Also in terms of complexity - have you ever read an actual legal contract? Do you think 99.9% of people understand that?

davidgerard 9y ago

> The real revolution is in smart contracts and virtual machines that run on a blockchain and the ability to define ownership of a distributed organization to distribute profits accordingly. e.g., the $50 million distributed to The DAO hacker. The DAO was the first famous smart contract, on the first popular smart contract platform. Every objection to smart contracts in the past couple of decades (computer programs model real law badly, immutability means you need to be a perfect programmer, immutability copes badly with changes in circumstances) came true, bang bang bang. Though I think even blockchain objectors were surprised when Ethereum came up with a new one: your smart contract is IMMUTABLE right up to the moment the big boys are in danger of losing money. Later of course we were reminded of the programming perfection requirement extending to all layers of the stack, e.g. the Solidity compiler bug that meant that a mathematically-proven-perfect contract could have a 'sploit. Smart contracts are a terrible and stupid idea, and The DAO should have put the idea firmly in the bin. That it didn't is a testament to human gullibility and the power of wishful thinking rather than the value of smart contracts.