> But the idea that bank-run paper based systems are 100% secure is not true - they routinely go wrong just through basic mistakes and screwups, let alone actu

> But the idea that bank-run paper based systems are 100% secure is not true - they routinely go wrong just through basic mistakes and screwups, let alone actual fraud. Nobody expects bank systems to be 100% secure. Banking -- and in fact the entire free market economy -- would not happen if it was required that the systems be secure. It's just the opposite: it is assumed that bank systems will fail or be abused in all sorts of strange and unexpected ways. This is why market participants will only invest if they have the right to appeal to neutral third party representative of justice. > One end goal of blockchains is indeed that they become the system of record and that legal agreements are English translations of what the code says rather than the other way around. It's safe to say that blockchains will never become some sort of indisputable system of record. That is, blockchains will never become sovereign. To be a sovereign and force others to obey your laws you need armies. We have already seen in cases where disputes rise on the blockchains that they get settled in real courts of the real sovereigns. In cases where crimes are committed but the blockchain hides identity you get investigations by, again, real LEOs of real sovereigns. Blockchain enthusiasts suffer from very fundamental misunderstandings of how economic activity actually happens. This isn't surprising: the vast majority of people have absolutely no idea how the modern global economy actually works. But the blockchain crew are betting real money based off this misunderstanding and, frankly, they're going to pay for it. Nothing costs more than ignorance. That's not to say that the underlying technology is hopeless. I expect we will see strongly permissioned and heavily regulated blockchains that build upon existing laws and institutions. Corda [1] et al have the right idea. These blockchains don't really replace anything, they're just distributed computing platforms that can greatly lower existing transaction costs. There are enormous inefficiences in global trade because buyers and sellers from different regimes don't trust each other and the cost to establish that trust is very high. [1] http://corda.net/ http://corda.net/