3 ms·

But if when there's a dispute you have to rely on a trusted third party to determine intent and arbitrate the contract, what's the benefit of having a smart con

But if when there's a dispute you have to rely on a trusted third party to determine intent and arbitrate the contract, what's the benefit of having a smart contract over a regular dumb one and relying on a trusted third party to determine intent and arbitrate the contract if there's a dispute?

strgcmc 5y ago
This is like saying, why have Uber use algorithms to match rider and driver, if you still need human customer support to deal with exceptions? IMO, the answer is fundamentally that it expands the market (no more limitations like medallions, scales better than hiring dispatchers, etc.), and creates more demand overall (more people use these cars than would've used traditional taxis). Of course, even the customer support gets automated away, until humans only need to deal with exceptions to the exceptions (that automated support was supposed to handle). So there can still be economies of scale and efficiency.
rocqua 5y ago
At the moment, there is no third party settling a dispute. All that really happened is that there was consensus that this was 'a hack / theft' in all sense except for the 'code is law' interpretation. Now, it seems that the thief was afraid of legal reprecussions, but that is sort of outside the scope of ethereum. It happens purely 'off chain'. The interesting exception to this story is the original DAO heist. Where an Eth hard-fork was made to reverse the heist. In this case there was an intervention. That intervention took broad consensus of miners and developers. So it takes a pretty big effort to get disputes "resolved" away from what the smart contract says. That is an interesting deviation from normal contracts before a court. Personally, I do think that Eth should not have forked the DAO heist away, but I understand why they did.

3 ms·

But if when there's a dispute you have to rely on a trusted third party to determine intent and arbitrate the contract, what's the benefit of having a smart con

by andrewaylett 5y ago

strgcmc 5y ago
This is like saying, why have Uber use algorithms to match rider and driver, if you still need human customer support to deal with exceptions? IMO, the answer is fundamentally that it expands the market (no more limitations like medallions, scales better than hiring dispatchers, etc.), and creates more demand overall (more people use these cars than would've used traditional taxis). Of course, even the customer support gets automated away, until humans only need to deal with exceptions to the exceptions (that automated support was supposed to handle). So there can still be economies of scale and efficiency.
rocqua 5y ago
At the moment, there is no third party settling a dispute. All that really happened is that there was consensus that this was 'a hack / theft' in all sense except for the 'code is law' interpretation. Now, it seems that the thief was afraid of legal reprecussions, but that is sort of outside the scope of ethereum. It happens purely 'off chain'. The interesting exception to this story is the original DAO heist. Where an Eth hard-fork was made to reverse the heist. In this case there was an intervention. That intervention took broad consensus of miners and developers. So it takes a pretty big effort to get disputes "resolved" away from what the smart contract says. That is an interesting deviation from normal contracts before a court. Personally, I do think that Eth should not have forked the DAO heist away, but I understand why they did.