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In that case I'm happy Robinhood hasn't screwed you over. Unfortunately that isn't the case for everyone. In the past Robinhood has done questionable things li

In that case I'm happy Robinhood hasn't screwed you over. Unfortunately that isn't the case for everyone. In the past Robinhood has done questionable things like halting trading on a specific stock (GME) that other platforms didn't halt. I've also heard horror stories about people getting margin called due to bugs. I'm not saying smart-contracts are immune to these issues but the transparency of the bytecode being public is huge IMO. This is just a single example of course. Imagine for a moment that we have a decentralized facebook-like app. Wouldn't it be great if we could fork it if they did something we didn't like? You might think that's a pipe dream but my argument is that this becomes less of a pipedream the more we educate people. > That crypto and decentralization is "the right direction" is absolutely not self-evident. Can you substantiate that position? My position is that crypto and decentralization give people options and put pressure on existing institutions that IMO have become too powerful. My goal isn't necessarily to destroy Bank of America, Visa, or Robinhood but to inject some real competition into the system. That includes institutions like the federal reserve. I want there to be a spectrum of centralization <-> decentralization and let people choose what they're comfortable with. I want people to be able to say "Fuck bank of america, I'm going bankless". Or people can stick with what they know. Either way I think competition is good.

cinquemb 5y ago
> I want people to be able to say "Fuck bank of america, I'm going bankless" The problem is that there is a bunch of people out there that don't want others to be able to do this and will constantly shout about perils of permissionless DLT systems without acknowledging such (or without mentioning the many ways which permissioned non DLT systems have and continue to fail for increasingly more people [or without having any ideas on how to approach solving such problems in general that individuals can adopt for themseleves], which is really fine to me, because those people can't really stop what has been underway for the past 13 years [and often want somebody else to stop it for them, without even understanding how the systems they want to stop work, or putting any work in themselves to stop it beyond open throat/think piece operations])
- preseinger 5y ago
  It's so disingenuous to equate the problems related to, like, the Fed, to the problems inherent to crypto. Somebody exfiltrated an API key from some bad Javascript and stole $130,000,000 with no consequences. That's what crypto is. Unavoidably so. It's just mind boggling that folks try to sweep that aside as if it's nothing, or solvable!
  - serverholic 5y ago
    There is a technology called an optimistic rollup. The basic idea is that you submit transactions to the rollup and these transactions are assumed to be valid. These transactions stay on the rollup for a period of time, 7 days, 1 month, whatever. During that time anyone can submit a "fraud proof" and that transaction can be reversed. After the time interval the valid transactions are committed to the main blockchain. There is no reason that bank of america or visa couldn't run their own rollup and implement their own fraud system. In fact, visa is likely working on tools like this.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    Just $130M? Knight Capital lost $440M because of a software bug in automated trading on a centralized exchange. It's computers. Shit happens.
thr0wawayf00 5y ago
> I'm not saying smart-contracts are immune to these issues but the transparency of the bytecode being public is huge IMO. I think this is a tad overrated, honestly. The DAO was open-source and that didn’t prevent it from being hacked and ETH hard-forked. I’m not against this kind of transparency, but DAO proved that it’s no silver bullet because the rate at which they shipped code made the whole transparency point moot.
preseinger 5y ago
Yes, you can easily find examples of bad stuff done by companies. But they're ultimately beholden to laws and regulations which, in the long arc of history, do actually serve the interests of society. That authority is important. And it's totally absent from decentralized systems. If a con man tricks me with a smart contract that drains all of my wealth, I have no recourse. That's a catastrophic outcome, and a fundamental problem with the whole enterprise.

cinquemb 5y ago

> I want people to be able to say "Fuck bank of america, I'm going bankless" The problem is that there is a bunch of people out there that don't want others to be able to do this and will constantly shout about perils of permissionless DLT systems without acknowledging such (or without mentioning the many ways which permissioned non DLT systems have and continue to fail for increasingly more people [or without having any ideas on how to approach solving such problems in general that individuals can adopt for themseleves], which is really fine to me, because those people can't really stop what has been underway for the past 13 years [and often want somebody else to stop it for them, without even understanding how the systems they want to stop work, or putting any work in themselves to stop it beyond open throat/think piece operations])

preseinger 5y ago
It's so disingenuous to equate the problems related to, like, the Fed, to the problems inherent to crypto. Somebody exfiltrated an API key from some bad Javascript and stole $130,000,000 with no consequences. That's what crypto is. Unavoidably so. It's just mind boggling that folks try to sweep that aside as if it's nothing, or solvable!
- serverholic 5y ago
  There is a technology called an optimistic rollup. The basic idea is that you submit transactions to the rollup and these transactions are assumed to be valid. These transactions stay on the rollup for a period of time, 7 days, 1 month, whatever. During that time anyone can submit a "fraud proof" and that transaction can be reversed. After the time interval the valid transactions are committed to the main blockchain. There is no reason that bank of america or visa couldn't run their own rollup and implement their own fraud system. In fact, visa is likely working on tools like this.
- DarylZero 5y ago
  Just $130M? Knight Capital lost $440M because of a software bug in automated trading on a centralized exchange. It's computers. Shit happens.

thr0wawayf00 5y ago

> I'm not saying smart-contracts are immune to these issues but the transparency of the bytecode being public is huge IMO. I think this is a tad overrated, honestly. The DAO was open-source and that didn’t prevent it from being hacked and ETH hard-forked. I’m not against this kind of transparency, but DAO proved that it’s no silver bullet because the rate at which they shipped code made the whole transparency point moot.

preseinger 5y ago

Yes, you can easily find examples of bad stuff done by companies. But they're ultimately beholden to laws and regulations which, in the long arc of history, do actually serve the interests of society. That authority is important. And it's totally absent from decentralized systems. If a con man tricks me with a smart contract that drains all of my wealth, I have no recourse. That's a catastrophic outcome, and a fundamental problem with the whole enterprise.