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Barring specific features like admin contracts or governance tokens, it is possible to have a smart contract that is not under control of someone or a group of

Barring specific features like admin contracts or governance tokens, it is possible to have a smart contract that is not under control of someone or a group of people. Contract bytecode gets uploaded to Ethereum (potentially anonymously, and potentially generated by a computer). It then does exactly what the smart contract says it does, including potentially trading or transacting digital assets, in perpetuity, for as long as there exists at least one Ethereum node on earth. By default, smart contracts can't be modified by anyone, not even their creator. This strikes me like Indiana legislating the value of pi. There exists a natural world out there, beyond human influence, and certain computer programs (particularly ones on Ethereum, where they run on all computers, not one computer) effectively become part of the natural world. The law is set up on the assumption that all actions are ultimately caused by a human or organization, but this may not be a valid assumption anymore.

pjc50 5y ago
> it is possible to have a smart contract that is not under control of someone or a group of people. Contract bytecode gets uploaded to Ethereum (potentially anonymously, and potentially generated by a computer). It then does exactly what the smart contract says it does, including potentially trading or transacting digital assets, in perpetuity, for as long as there exists at least one Ethereum node on earth. If I may translate this in to politician speak, you're saying that the Iranian government and other OFAC-sanctioned entities can create autonomous fiscal cyberweapons which cannot be turned off? (Requires a bit of imagination to do this without oracles, which are obviously a weak spot, but you could imagine having an autonomous bug bounty program that can automatically validate and pay out certain kinds of exploits. Self-funding ransomware?) If there can be autonomous organizations, there can be autonomous crimes, and that is not a stable situation.
- sfcryptonic 5y ago
  Can you expand on this for me please . i am very interested in your perspective on this

pjc50 5y ago

> it is possible to have a smart contract that is not under control of someone or a group of people. Contract bytecode gets uploaded to Ethereum (potentially anonymously, and potentially generated by a computer). It then does exactly what the smart contract says it does, including potentially trading or transacting digital assets, in perpetuity, for as long as there exists at least one Ethereum node on earth. If I may translate this in to politician speak, you're saying that the Iranian government and other OFAC-sanctioned entities can create autonomous fiscal cyberweapons which cannot be turned off? (Requires a bit of imagination to do this without oracles, which are obviously a weak spot, but you could imagine having an autonomous bug bounty program that can automatically validate and pay out certain kinds of exploits. Self-funding ransomware?) If there can be autonomous organizations, there can be autonomous crimes, and that is not a stable situation.

sfcryptonic 5y ago
Can you expand on this for me please . i am very interested in your perspective on this