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It's bizarre to me that one would gauge the credibility of Ethereum today based on an event that occurred less than a year into the existence of the protocol, a

It's bizarre to me that one would gauge the credibility of Ethereum today based on an event that occurred less than a year into the existence of the protocol, and despite massive performance with respect to digital assets since then (algorithmic stablecoins, AMM's, etc.). It's certainly fair to debate the strength of immutability guarantees with respect to a given blockchain, but in practice no blockchain is perfectly immutable given that humans still write and deploy the clients that run them. Consider the 184 billion Bitcoin hack from 2010, a similar straw man about the _current_ immutability claims of Bitcoin.

arisAlexis 5y ago
That action was pivotal and a blunder and Vitalik was not mature enough to realize it. I believe he wouldn't do it again today.
- koolba 5y ago
  He can’t do it today. The sheer size of the ecosystem and layers of real world assets that are (supposedly) tied to it would make any such rollback all but impossible. But it being possible is still a non-zero risk.
  - capsulecorp 5y ago
    >He can’t do it today. I'd argue he CAN indeed do it again today. Perhaps not in the exact way as the DAO fiasco, but lets be clear, the fundamental transgression was selling one story "the code is law" and then not abiding by that law when it affected him and his friends aversely. So can he still commit such an egregious breach of trust in this timeline, despite having done it before? Absolutely, though that and the DAO instance may indeed look different from one another.
    - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
      Do you have any original sources of Vitalik promoting the idea that "the code is law"?
      - capsulecorp 5y ago
        Yes I do, here's the one I found at the top of a google search, I'm sure you can find plenty more. https://twitter.com/vitalikbuterin/status/1188511660387889153?lang=en https://twitter.com/vitalikbuterin/status/118851166038788915...
        X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
        Huh given the context (especially given that this was post DAO hard fork) I read that as vitalik saying that "Code is law" is a principal, not necessarily saying that "code is law" is a principal held by himself/Ethereum.
        capsulecorp 5y ago
        I don't think you read that very well. His response is to Samson Mow (CSO of Blockstream) claiming that Vitalik was "Pivoting to 'Principles are law' from 'Code is law?'". This is because anyone who is even remotely familiar with Ethereum/Vitalik knows how many times Vitalik has said he believes "Code is Law". Vitalik goes on to defend against Mow's claim that he is "pivoting" by saying that it is indeed a principle. It's extremely clear with basic reading comprehension that Vitalik is claiming that as a principle of his. Not sure how you extracted the meaning you did. If I'm being honest, you seem to not really be researching the subject in good faith, as a simple google search will turn up many times he's either stated he believes that in text or even video. You are welcome to believe what you'd like to though, I unfortunately don't have the time to do your research for you, nor do I care to change your mind. So cheers and good luck!
        X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
        Well I suppose that's that. For what it's worth I have passing familiarity. Taken from wikipedia: > The people who continued with Ethereum Classic advocate for blockchain immutability, and the concept that "code is law" against the pro-fork side (Ethereum) which largely argued for extra-protocol intentionality, decentralized decision-making, and conflict resolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum_Classic#Code_is_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum_Classic#Code_is_law Ethereum Classic clearly believes in code is law, that's not the chain that Vitalik works on.
capsulecorp 5y ago
It's bizarre to me that one would NOT gauge the credibility of Ethereum today based on what the developers actually did vs what they said they would do. What exactly have they done to redeem themselves from their previous scandal?
- ccamrobertson 5y ago
  The idea that a blockchain with thousands of nodes requires redemption from some historical act seems to ignore the very nature of how it functions at a protocol level. Ethereum exists as a collection of nodes who choose to participate using certain clients, not a computer in Vitalik's closet. Credibility is the fact that Ethereum has succeeded with sufficient immutability since The DAO hack to convince billions of dollars of transactions for various use cases. Proof is in the pudding.
  - jude- 5y ago
    What assurance do we have that they won't do it again when it suits them? That "credibility" metric is meaningless when the core devs can rug-pull at any time. "Jude-, go run Ethereum Classic if you're that bent out of shape about it" isn't a compelling argument either, because if the vast majority of the Ethereum economy goes along with the core devs' whims, then there's no point of having a blockchain at all. Might as well just replace Ethereum with a replicated PostgreSQL database, and give only the core devs permission to change the schema and UPDATE rows. If we're trusting core devs to not rug-pull in the future, after they have done so in the past, then there's really no need for the current low-trust environment -- after all, the things that make it low-trust also make it slow and expensive.
    - ccamrobertson 5y ago
      And Bitcoin core devs can _never_ do the same? Weird, I didn't make an argument to use Ethereum Classic. I am arguing that given humans are still the ones who develop clients perfect immutability is impossible. I do belive that Bitcoin is more immutable than Ethereum. I also don't buy that Ethereum is unusably mutable. But hey, looks like the market thus far agrees with my position on this.
jude- 5y ago
The difference is that the Bitcoin chain was not retroactively and incompatibly modified -- that fork still (ostensibly) exists and can be both mined and validated by the same software rules today. The system soft-forked; it didn't hard-fork.
- ccamrobertson 5y ago
  The implementation of the fix was done by a small, early community who moved to effectively eliminate the 184 billion Bitcoin from circulation as humans, fixing a client. As noted, I think its a similar straw man (read: not the same). Really, it just seems intellectually lazy to me to use The DAO as a way to gauge Ethereum today. Folks should instead focus on what devs are doing now (e.g. EIP 1559 would be something of concern) to have an honest debate about mutability today vs. whinging about Vitalik then.
  - jude- 5y ago
    The reason this keeps coming up is because Ethereum has not taken any concrete steps in its governance process to make it so that either DAO-like rollback will not happen again, or if it does, it happens with the measured consent of all stakeholders. Hard forks are still a regular occurrence in Ethereum, and most of them change the ETH emission rate (which makes it really hard for anyone who wants to park capital in ETH long-term to make informed decisions). Also, hard forks are executed entirely at the discretion of an in-group of core developers, whose decision-making powers stem from an inscrutable who-knows-who social graph (as opposed to the consent of the governed). The best assurance they seem to be giving that the funds they manage are in good hands is a statement to the effect of "trust us, it won't happen again." Forgive me if I'm not so willing to give them the benefit of doubt a second time. Here are a few things Ethereum could do to reassure the world that the DAO disaster won't be repeated. I think that even if only a subset of these measures were adopted, it would at least demonstrate that the project has learned something from the experience. * Create a representative "hard fork board" in the core developers group that procures and shepherds all future changes to the codebase that could create hard forks. Hard forks may only originate from this board, and membership in this board is decided through regular free and fair elections by individuals in the ecosystem (there would need to be a KYC-like process to verify that these individuals are actual, real Etherians). * Make it so any hard forks proposed by this hard fork board can only take effect if a large amount of the total circulating supply of ETH to vote for the upgrade. This serves to allow the anonymous masses to check the power of the board. * Involve miners (or block-producers in ETH 2.0) in the vote-to-upgrade procedure, such as by giving them veto power if they can muster enough mining or staking power. This ensures that developers can't make changes that would boot off marginalized miners/block-producers. * Involve users in the vote-to-upgrade procedure. Make it so exchanges cannot vote with their users' funds; the users themselves must vote with their keys.

arisAlexis 5y ago

That action was pivotal and a blunder and Vitalik was not mature enough to realize it. I believe he wouldn't do it again today.

koolba 5y ago
He can’t do it today. The sheer size of the ecosystem and layers of real world assets that are (supposedly) tied to it would make any such rollback all but impossible. But it being possible is still a non-zero risk.
- capsulecorp 5y ago
  >He can’t do it today. I'd argue he CAN indeed do it again today. Perhaps not in the exact way as the DAO fiasco, but lets be clear, the fundamental transgression was selling one story "the code is law" and then not abiding by that law when it affected him and his friends aversely. So can he still commit such an egregious breach of trust in this timeline, despite having done it before? Absolutely, though that and the DAO instance may indeed look different from one another.
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
    Do you have any original sources of Vitalik promoting the idea that "the code is law"?
    - capsulecorp 5y ago
      Yes I do, here's the one I found at the top of a google search, I'm sure you can find plenty more. https://twitter.com/vitalikbuterin/status/1188511660387889153?lang=en https://twitter.com/vitalikbuterin/status/118851166038788915...
      - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
        Huh given the context (especially given that this was post DAO hard fork) I read that as vitalik saying that "Code is law" is a principal, not necessarily saying that "code is law" is a principal held by himself/Ethereum.
        capsulecorp 5y ago
        I don't think you read that very well. His response is to Samson Mow (CSO of Blockstream) claiming that Vitalik was "Pivoting to 'Principles are law' from 'Code is law?'". This is because anyone who is even remotely familiar with Ethereum/Vitalik knows how many times Vitalik has said he believes "Code is Law". Vitalik goes on to defend against Mow's claim that he is "pivoting" by saying that it is indeed a principle. It's extremely clear with basic reading comprehension that Vitalik is claiming that as a principle of his. Not sure how you extracted the meaning you did. If I'm being honest, you seem to not really be researching the subject in good faith, as a simple google search will turn up many times he's either stated he believes that in text or even video. You are welcome to believe what you'd like to though, I unfortunately don't have the time to do your research for you, nor do I care to change your mind. So cheers and good luck!
        X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
        Well I suppose that's that. For what it's worth I have passing familiarity. Taken from wikipedia: > The people who continued with Ethereum Classic advocate for blockchain immutability, and the concept that "code is law" against the pro-fork side (Ethereum) which largely argued for extra-protocol intentionality, decentralized decision-making, and conflict resolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum_Classic#Code_is_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum_Classic#Code_is_law Ethereum Classic clearly believes in code is law, that's not the chain that Vitalik works on.

capsulecorp 5y ago

It's bizarre to me that one would NOT gauge the credibility of Ethereum today based on what the developers actually did vs what they said they would do. What exactly have they done to redeem themselves from their previous scandal?

ccamrobertson 5y ago
The idea that a blockchain with thousands of nodes requires redemption from some historical act seems to ignore the very nature of how it functions at a protocol level. Ethereum exists as a collection of nodes who choose to participate using certain clients, not a computer in Vitalik's closet. Credibility is the fact that Ethereum has succeeded with sufficient immutability since The DAO hack to convince billions of dollars of transactions for various use cases. Proof is in the pudding.
- jude- 5y ago
  What assurance do we have that they won't do it again when it suits them? That "credibility" metric is meaningless when the core devs can rug-pull at any time. "Jude-, go run Ethereum Classic if you're that bent out of shape about it" isn't a compelling argument either, because if the vast majority of the Ethereum economy goes along with the core devs' whims, then there's no point of having a blockchain at all. Might as well just replace Ethereum with a replicated PostgreSQL database, and give only the core devs permission to change the schema and UPDATE rows. If we're trusting core devs to not rug-pull in the future, after they have done so in the past, then there's really no need for the current low-trust environment -- after all, the things that make it low-trust also make it slow and expensive.
  - ccamrobertson 5y ago
    And Bitcoin core devs can _never_ do the same? Weird, I didn't make an argument to use Ethereum Classic. I am arguing that given humans are still the ones who develop clients perfect immutability is impossible. I do belive that Bitcoin is more immutable than Ethereum. I also don't buy that Ethereum is unusably mutable. But hey, looks like the market thus far agrees with my position on this.

jude- 5y ago

The difference is that the Bitcoin chain was not retroactively and incompatibly modified -- that fork still (ostensibly) exists and can be both mined and validated by the same software rules today. The system soft-forked; it didn't hard-fork.

ccamrobertson 5y ago
The implementation of the fix was done by a small, early community who moved to effectively eliminate the 184 billion Bitcoin from circulation as humans, fixing a client. As noted, I think its a similar straw man (read: not the same). Really, it just seems intellectually lazy to me to use The DAO as a way to gauge Ethereum today. Folks should instead focus on what devs are doing now (e.g. EIP 1559 would be something of concern) to have an honest debate about mutability today vs. whinging about Vitalik then.
- jude- 5y ago
  The reason this keeps coming up is because Ethereum has not taken any concrete steps in its governance process to make it so that either DAO-like rollback will not happen again, or if it does, it happens with the measured consent of all stakeholders. Hard forks are still a regular occurrence in Ethereum, and most of them change the ETH emission rate (which makes it really hard for anyone who wants to park capital in ETH long-term to make informed decisions). Also, hard forks are executed entirely at the discretion of an in-group of core developers, whose decision-making powers stem from an inscrutable who-knows-who social graph (as opposed to the consent of the governed). The best assurance they seem to be giving that the funds they manage are in good hands is a statement to the effect of "trust us, it won't happen again." Forgive me if I'm not so willing to give them the benefit of doubt a second time. Here are a few things Ethereum could do to reassure the world that the DAO disaster won't be repeated. I think that even if only a subset of these measures were adopted, it would at least demonstrate that the project has learned something from the experience. * Create a representative "hard fork board" in the core developers group that procures and shepherds all future changes to the codebase that could create hard forks. Hard forks may only originate from this board, and membership in this board is decided through regular free and fair elections by individuals in the ecosystem (there would need to be a KYC-like process to verify that these individuals are actual, real Etherians). * Make it so any hard forks proposed by this hard fork board can only take effect if a large amount of the total circulating supply of ETH to vote for the upgrade. This serves to allow the anonymous masses to check the power of the board. * Involve miners (or block-producers in ETH 2.0) in the vote-to-upgrade procedure, such as by giving them veto power if they can muster enough mining or staking power. This ensures that developers can't make changes that would boot off marginalized miners/block-producers. * Involve users in the vote-to-upgrade procedure. Make it so exchanges cannot vote with their users' funds; the users themselves must vote with their keys.