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I just went through the process of buying something expensive in a "trustless" system in an IRL country. It was pretty painful and very expensive -- I paid $30

by biztos 5y ago

I just went through the process of buying something expensive in a "trustless" system in an IRL country. It was pretty painful and very expensive -- I paid $300 just to get a guaranteed check cut! Of course this is a trivial problem to solve with smart contracts, if you can have things like real-life identity and real-life money mapped to them. While I don't think any of the crypto stuff out there today solves any of these problems realistically, at least Ethereum sure looks like an experiment in that direction. That a lot of people are getting rich speculating on crypto absolutely triggers my FOMO, and sometimes my disdain (cf. certain NFT sales) -- but I definitely wouldn't call it worthless. Some day we may have free, secure, trustless escrow via smart contracts, and a bunch of other neat stuff. I think that's unlikely to be on any of the current networks, but I also think we'll get it decades earlier because of them.

throwawaygh 5y ago
> Of course this is a trivial problem to solve with smart contracts, if you can have things like real-life identity and real-life money mapped to them. This reminds me of talking to a salesperson at $BIG_CO about their "blockchain platform cloud" offering for "ending inventory tracking system inaccuracy problems once and for all". I could never figure out how cryptography was supposed to help with the "is the physical thing actually where it's supposed to be in the physical warehouse" problem. That seemed like the non-trivial part. Everything else you could just do with a flat-file CSV or whatever. The free drinks were nice.
jollybean 5y ago
"Of course this is a trivial problem to solve with smart contracts, " No, it doesn't. The 'contract' was never the issue really. We need a judicicial and regulatory system in which the contract is valid, the means to redress issues, undo transactions. Now, $300 is probably too much to move money and speaks to the incumbency of financial actors ... but a good chunk of that cost is actually the reality of the fact that it takes a lot of very smart, very conscientious and super 'small-c' conservative running financial infrastructure. I think regular fintech startups will beat down that $300 cost faster than crypto will.

by biztos 5y ago

throwawaygh 5y ago

> Of course this is a trivial problem to solve with smart contracts, if you can have things like real-life identity and real-life money mapped to them. This reminds me of talking to a salesperson at $BIG_CO about their "blockchain platform cloud" offering for "ending inventory tracking system inaccuracy problems once and for all". I could never figure out how cryptography was supposed to help with the "is the physical thing actually where it's supposed to be in the physical warehouse" problem. That seemed like the non-trivial part. Everything else you could just do with a flat-file CSV or whatever. The free drinks were nice.

jollybean 5y ago

"Of course this is a trivial problem to solve with smart contracts, " No, it doesn't. The 'contract' was never the issue really. We need a judicicial and regulatory system in which the contract is valid, the means to redress issues, undo transactions. Now, $300 is probably too much to move money and speaks to the incumbency of financial actors ... but a good chunk of that cost is actually the reality of the fact that it takes a lot of very smart, very conscientious and super 'small-c' conservative running financial infrastructure. I think regular fintech startups will beat down that $300 cost faster than crypto will.