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>What computer runs the scraper? How do I know I can trust the response of this computer? What if the scraper gets banned or breaks? Housing price data is publ

>What computer runs the scraper? How do I know I can trust the response of this computer? What if the scraper gets banned or breaks? Housing price data is publicly-available and pretty easy to verify at no cost. Anyone considering investing in real estate presumably has access to this info already. >How do the token holders know the documentation they will receive upon default will be legit? That's a risk with any type of transaction, but easy to verify with a good lawyer. With boilerplate docs the cost of verification goes down with each incremental transaction, i.e. once your lawyer signs off on the docs for your first deal, you can feel reasonably confident making a 2nd deal on the same paper. >How is the relationship between tokens and ownership stake enforced? Token holders would only receive an ownership stake if the buyer defaults. Up until that point they are just creditors. Basically this is a mortgage, but it bypasses a long foreclosure process which is better for the lenders/investors. >What does it mean for multiple token holders to each receive a copy of the executed deed? There already is precedent for homes to have multiple owners. Depending upon the desired number of lenders/investors, a shell company may need to be created, but again that is relatively straightforward.

root_axis 9y ago
> Housing price data is publicly-available and pretty easy to verify at no cost. Anyone considering investing in real estate presumably has access to this info already. That doesn't answer the question of how I know I can trust the computer that feeds housing price data into the contract. What if it cuts the prices by 10% before feeding them into the contract? > That's a risk with any type of transaction, but easy to verify with a good lawyer You have no way to ensure that what the lawyer verifies is what the contract will release upon default. > Token holders would only receive an ownership stake if the buyer defaults That doesn't answer the question of how the ownership stake is enforced. If the default occurs, the token holders will have to go to court to figure it all out which eliminates the usefulness of the contract. > There already is precedent for homes to have multiple owners. Depending upon the desired number of lenders/investors, a shell company may need to be created, but again that is relatively straightforward. If my ownership stake is codified through the existing legal system what use is the smart contract? It doesn't matter what the smart contract does if I've already established myself as a partial owner via a shell corporation.
- jasonlaramburu 9y ago
  I think a lot of your questions are more related to how eth smart contracts work. Apologies if I'm misunderstanding. It's easy to verify that the deployed code of an eth smart contract matches the open source code using the Bytecode of the deployed contract. Etherscan offers contract verification, as do many other sources. >That doesn't answer the question of how I know I can trust the computer that feeds housing price data into the contract. What if it cuts the prices by 10% before feeding them into the contract? You can read the state of a contract for free, so you would be able to see whatever the 'price' was at any given moment. It would obviously be on you to do your DD and confirm that the price is accurate. >You have no way to ensure that what the lawyer verifies is what the contract will release upon default. Yes you do, see first comment above. >If the default occurs, the token holders will have to go to court to figure it all out. Not all defaults will necessarily lead to litigation. The parties would only need to go to court if the owner did not abide by the terms of the contract. In any traditional foreclosure lots of money and time is spent on legal proceedings. >If my ownership stake is codified through the existing legal system what use is the smart contract? You would only need to use the existing legal system in the event of default or breach, which would hopefully be rare. The contract eliminates middlemen. The token also gives investors/lenders significantly more liquidity, which is desirable.
  - root_axis 9y ago
    > It would obviously be on you to do your DD and confirm that the price is accurate. Due diligence is irrelevant. The point is that a smart contract cannot run a scraper, it must outsource that work to another computer living outside the blockchain; that computer is a blackbox thats behavior could change at any time. > It's easy to verify that the deployed code of an eth smart contract matches the open source code using the Bytecode of the deployed contract The code is not the issue. If all documents are available from the beginning then the smart contract is not doing anything useful. A smart contract cannot execute a deed automatically so it serves no purpose that could not otherwise be achieved using centralized software systems. > Not all defaults will necessarily lead to litigation. The parties would only need to go to court if the owner did not abide by the terms of the contract The entire purpose of a contract is that people very often fail to meet the terms of the agreement. If you're relying on the legal system to adjudicate smart contract disputes then the smart contract is literally no different from a traditional legal contract except that it is written in unnecessarily inefficient blockchain code instead of legalese. > The token also gives investors/lenders significantly more liquidity The tokens provide no liquidity because the legal system does not recognize them as real, you might as well print out PGP signed IOUs on index cards for all those tokens are worth.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> > How do the token holders know the documentation they will receive upon default will be legit? > That's a risk with any type of transaction, No, it's not; particularly, traditional mortgages (the closest real world analog to your proposal) don't have this problem, because there is no hidden-until-default document transferring interwst, there is an interest of the named mortgage holder registered against the title record when the mortgage is initiated. This is a solved problem, but the desire to try to move things into smart contracts means you can't use the solution. > but easy to verify with a good lawyer. How is a lawyer going to validate that a deed PDF that can't be accessed until default is a valid document in advance of the actual default?
- jasonlaramburu 9y ago
  Edit: The pdf would be accessible anytime. It's free to read the state of the contract anytime. In the event of default, the pdf would be automatically executed and delivered to the parties. I'm not familiar with the notary requirements for a deed, but there are plenty of online notaries (you submit a picture of yourself and your ID). Also doesn't Opendoor already process deeds completely online? Again, I think you do not have a clear technical understanding how smart contracts work. You can view the state of a contract for free at any time(unless otherwise specified). You can also validate the deployed contract against open source code. So yes, if you (or your lawyer) can’t understand solidity code you would need to pay someone to review it for you, but that seems surmountable. Furthermore, a lender cannot easily trade or liquidate a mortgage without losing significant value. Foreclosures/short sales typically undervalue properties.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    It's not the code that is the issue, but the PDF documentation which is only made available after default. Knowing the code will correctly deliver the document doesn't do me any good if I can't verify its a legally adequate document. (Of course, the fact that a PDF will likely not meet the signed and notarized original requirement for property transfer is another issue.)
    - 9y ago

root_axis 9y ago

> Housing price data is publicly-available and pretty easy to verify at no cost. Anyone considering investing in real estate presumably has access to this info already. That doesn't answer the question of how I know I can trust the computer that feeds housing price data into the contract. What if it cuts the prices by 10% before feeding them into the contract? > That's a risk with any type of transaction, but easy to verify with a good lawyer You have no way to ensure that what the lawyer verifies is what the contract will release upon default. > Token holders would only receive an ownership stake if the buyer defaults That doesn't answer the question of how the ownership stake is enforced. If the default occurs, the token holders will have to go to court to figure it all out which eliminates the usefulness of the contract. > There already is precedent for homes to have multiple owners. Depending upon the desired number of lenders/investors, a shell company may need to be created, but again that is relatively straightforward. If my ownership stake is codified through the existing legal system what use is the smart contract? It doesn't matter what the smart contract does if I've already established myself as a partial owner via a shell corporation.

jasonlaramburu 9y ago
I think a lot of your questions are more related to how eth smart contracts work. Apologies if I'm misunderstanding. It's easy to verify that the deployed code of an eth smart contract matches the open source code using the Bytecode of the deployed contract. Etherscan offers contract verification, as do many other sources. >That doesn't answer the question of how I know I can trust the computer that feeds housing price data into the contract. What if it cuts the prices by 10% before feeding them into the contract? You can read the state of a contract for free, so you would be able to see whatever the 'price' was at any given moment. It would obviously be on you to do your DD and confirm that the price is accurate. >You have no way to ensure that what the lawyer verifies is what the contract will release upon default. Yes you do, see first comment above. >If the default occurs, the token holders will have to go to court to figure it all out. Not all defaults will necessarily lead to litigation. The parties would only need to go to court if the owner did not abide by the terms of the contract. In any traditional foreclosure lots of money and time is spent on legal proceedings. >If my ownership stake is codified through the existing legal system what use is the smart contract? You would only need to use the existing legal system in the event of default or breach, which would hopefully be rare. The contract eliminates middlemen. The token also gives investors/lenders significantly more liquidity, which is desirable.
- root_axis 9y ago
  > It would obviously be on you to do your DD and confirm that the price is accurate. Due diligence is irrelevant. The point is that a smart contract cannot run a scraper, it must outsource that work to another computer living outside the blockchain; that computer is a blackbox thats behavior could change at any time. > It's easy to verify that the deployed code of an eth smart contract matches the open source code using the Bytecode of the deployed contract The code is not the issue. If all documents are available from the beginning then the smart contract is not doing anything useful. A smart contract cannot execute a deed automatically so it serves no purpose that could not otherwise be achieved using centralized software systems. > Not all defaults will necessarily lead to litigation. The parties would only need to go to court if the owner did not abide by the terms of the contract The entire purpose of a contract is that people very often fail to meet the terms of the agreement. If you're relying on the legal system to adjudicate smart contract disputes then the smart contract is literally no different from a traditional legal contract except that it is written in unnecessarily inefficient blockchain code instead of legalese. > The token also gives investors/lenders significantly more liquidity The tokens provide no liquidity because the legal system does not recognize them as real, you might as well print out PGP signed IOUs on index cards for all those tokens are worth.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> > How do the token holders know the documentation they will receive upon default will be legit? > That's a risk with any type of transaction, No, it's not; particularly, traditional mortgages (the closest real world analog to your proposal) don't have this problem, because there is no hidden-until-default document transferring interwst, there is an interest of the named mortgage holder registered against the title record when the mortgage is initiated. This is a solved problem, but the desire to try to move things into smart contracts means you can't use the solution. > but easy to verify with a good lawyer. How is a lawyer going to validate that a deed PDF that can't be accessed until default is a valid document in advance of the actual default?

jasonlaramburu 9y ago
Edit: The pdf would be accessible anytime. It's free to read the state of the contract anytime. In the event of default, the pdf would be automatically executed and delivered to the parties. I'm not familiar with the notary requirements for a deed, but there are plenty of online notaries (you submit a picture of yourself and your ID). Also doesn't Opendoor already process deeds completely online? Again, I think you do not have a clear technical understanding how smart contracts work. You can view the state of a contract for free at any time(unless otherwise specified). You can also validate the deployed contract against open source code. So yes, if you (or your lawyer) can’t understand solidity code you would need to pay someone to review it for you, but that seems surmountable. Furthermore, a lender cannot easily trade or liquidate a mortgage without losing significant value. Foreclosures/short sales typically undervalue properties.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  It's not the code that is the issue, but the PDF documentation which is only made available after default. Knowing the code will correctly deliver the document doesn't do me any good if I can't verify its a legally adequate document. (Of course, the fact that a PDF will likely not meet the signed and notarized original requirement for property transfer is another issue.)
  - 9y ago