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Very unlikely to succeed if you choose someone with enough vested interest in the company. Also “Dave is the only one that could have approved this, he’s who we

Very unlikely to succeed if you choose someone with enough vested interest in the company. Also “Dave is the only one that could have approved this, he’s who we sue”

sobellian 5y ago
If Dave owes you $600K, Dave's got a problem. If Dave owes you $600MM, you have a problem.
ineptech 5y ago
I phrased this glibly for comedy value, but this is not a silly problem; it is part of the "Oracle problem" and it imperils the entire fundamental value prop of defi. If it's not clear why, consider: what keeps defi from implementing gambling (or as it's known in the financial world, "options trading") on real-world data outcomes, like stock prices? Answer: that data isn't programmatically available on the blockchain. You can make a smart contract that depends on the closing price of ETH, but not AAPL. So, what if it were? What if someone decided to publish AAPL's closing price to a ledger somewhere? Then people could make a smart contract that effectively implements options trading against AAPL stock, right? In theory, yes. But in practice, the people that trade options will say, "How can we trust that you won't screw up, get hacked, get bribed, go out of business, etc? Every dollar we entrust to a smart contract that relies on your data is a prize to be won by the first person to find a way to subvert your service's data integrity." And they'll be right. There are lots of people trying to find fancy solutions to this problem, but to my knowledge we're no closer to a real solution than we were the day Ethereum went live.
- lazide 5y ago
  Part of the problem is in the nature of one of the ‘pluses’ of crypto - lack of the ability to roll back a transaction. If someone breaks into the fed and transfers a billion dollars to their account, it’s pretty pointless, because the next day or hour or whatever, it will be rolled back and except for them being in jail, it will be like it never happened. For it to be worthwhile, you would need to avoid having any of the oversight mechanisms step in, AND get the cash out in a way that is independent of the system AND won’t leave a trail for the army of slow and methodical investigators. And that is waaay harder. Providing an ability to do something criminal that will cause a non-reversible transfer of value? Ho boy. That raises the stakes a LOT - and it’s why you see so many bank robberies and why gold transports are guarded so heavily.
- l-lousy 5y ago
  I think there are efforts to create oracles like LINK, but you’re right that the only trustworthy data is from within the chain.

Very unlikely to succeed if you choose someone with enough vested interest in the company. Also “Dave is the only one that could have approved this, he’s who we sue”

sobellian 5y ago

If Dave owes you $600K, Dave's got a problem. If Dave owes you $600MM, you have a problem.

ineptech 5y ago

I phrased this glibly for comedy value, but this is not a silly problem; it is part of the "Oracle problem" and it imperils the entire fundamental value prop of defi. If it's not clear why, consider: what keeps defi from implementing gambling (or as it's known in the financial world, "options trading") on real-world data outcomes, like stock prices? Answer: that data isn't programmatically available on the blockchain. You can make a smart contract that depends on the closing price of ETH, but not AAPL. So, what if it were? What if someone decided to publish AAPL's closing price to a ledger somewhere? Then people could make a smart contract that effectively implements options trading against AAPL stock, right? In theory, yes. But in practice, the people that trade options will say, "How can we trust that you won't screw up, get hacked, get bribed, go out of business, etc? Every dollar we entrust to a smart contract that relies on your data is a prize to be won by the first person to find a way to subvert your service's data integrity." And they'll be right. There are lots of people trying to find fancy solutions to this problem, but to my knowledge we're no closer to a real solution than we were the day Ethereum went live.

lazide 5y ago
Part of the problem is in the nature of one of the ‘pluses’ of crypto - lack of the ability to roll back a transaction. If someone breaks into the fed and transfers a billion dollars to their account, it’s pretty pointless, because the next day or hour or whatever, it will be rolled back and except for them being in jail, it will be like it never happened. For it to be worthwhile, you would need to avoid having any of the oversight mechanisms step in, AND get the cash out in a way that is independent of the system AND won’t leave a trail for the army of slow and methodical investigators. And that is waaay harder. Providing an ability to do something criminal that will cause a non-reversible transfer of value? Ho boy. That raises the stakes a LOT - and it’s why you see so many bank robberies and why gold transports are guarded so heavily.
l-lousy 5y ago
I think there are efforts to create oracles like LINK, but you’re right that the only trustworthy data is from within the chain.