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The future of currency ladies and gentlemen. This money is literally gone. Unrecoverable. Like he took the money out to a barrel and burned it. Only he didn't g

The future of currency ladies and gentlemen. This money is literally gone. Unrecoverable. Like he took the money out to a barrel and burned it. Only he didn't get any warmth out of it in exchange.

tsujp 5y ago
Ether isn’t intended to be used as a monetary currency like a dollar (reasonable stable). Its purpose is to pay for EVM instructions which are priced in gas. This is like saying because shoes happen to be worth money (sneakers/trainers) and because people happen to speculate on the price of shoes that the future of money is shoes. Bitcoin claims to be currency, Ether (used to pay for execution fees on Ethereum) does not.
yoavm 5y ago
Considering the emissions of all proof-of-work-based Blockchains, he probably warmed all of us.
- xzjis 5y ago
  Since I'm mining ETH when I'm not gaming, he maybe warmed me.
- vmception 5y ago
  thats pretty funny but for anyone else that wants to learn about this stuff, proof of work blockchains use the same energy whether transactions occur or not ironically this seemingly would actually bolster the argument against Proof of Work, but its probably more convenient that people are easily swayed towards inaccurate arguments
- noduerme 5y ago
  ah. Such an easy setup, it was a sure thing I'd be second to the party.
noduerme 5y ago
At least the rest of the planet got a little warmer /s
djhworld 5y ago
> Unrecoverable. I'm not very well versed in this stuff, but surely the tokens he sent are somewhere right. Like if you sent $500k to a bank but put the wrong account number in, the $500k would still go _somewhere_. It might be difficult to recover, but it's not like the money just disappears.
- askafriend 5y ago
  Unfortunately in this case, there is literally nothing anyone can do. The Ethereum is sitting in dead space not associated with any address. It's literally untouchable since you cannot change the contract. Hopefully this isn't the person's life savings.
- adjkant 5y ago
  They are in location X and it has been written into code that there is no way to ever remove them from X. The only difference between throwing this "money" into a black hole and this is that you can see what's in this black hole once it's in there, even if you cannot remove it. The only way to ever fix this is to rewrite the history of the blockchain which means forking the entire ETH currency by getting all mining/record nodes to agree to it. Long story short: Virtually unrecoverable without large coordination from the entire ETH community.
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    So all that is needed is forcing a bunch of people to do something. Not much different than forcing a lot of people to do to war, so not impossible. Lets imagine, hypothetically, that some mafia boss, big company, users would create a lobby, the "platform of people affected by Ethereum" that would lobby to force a fork for a fee. Lets say 50% percentage of your lost money if we are successful, that is still much better deal than having no money at all. And then would use some tool to convince/coerce/bully everybody to restore it or just would mess with the process to force it. Would be this possible or a probable outcome after enough amount of time has passed?
  - RomanAlexander 5y ago
    It's a possibility if your name is Vitalik Buterin
brodo 5y ago
You have to waste energy to create ETH because ‘inflation baaad‘ but destroying ETH is possible by accident. Crypto bros should really take some macroeconomics courses.
- oblio 5y ago
  I recommend they start with microeconomics, though. More relatable and it would tell them about human nature, first.
- 0x64 5y ago
  If inflation was bad, would destroying ETH not be a good thing since it leads to what's effectively an instant deflation of supply?
  - vitaflo 5y ago
    Deflation of actual currency is worse as it promotes hoarding. If something becomes cheaper tomorrow than today (deflation) then I am incentivized to not spend my currency. This grinds the gears of economic activity. Of course this only matters if you expect cryptocurrency to act like a currency.
  - disruptalot 5y ago
    The parent might be conflating inflation with the price of Ethereum going up? It's a common perception. But at least in the crypto world, inflation is understood as the value of the currency going down.
  - sanderjd 5y ago
    Destroying ETH is indeed widely considered a good thing. Since the middle of last year, a portion of the fees for every transaction is burned and most ethereum people seem very pleased by this. I've lost track but for a long time last year, ETH was indeed deflationary. The sense is that the value of burned ETH is distributed to everyone on the network in proportion to how much ETH they have. I don't think it seems so great though...
    - 5y ago
kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
Maybe the real WETH was the friends he made along the way?
bondarchuk 5y ago
Everyone else holding eth just got a little richer :)
PotentialArt635 5y ago
Imagine doing this with your life savings
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Or even worse, with the life savings of other people.

The future of currency ladies and gentlemen. This money is literally gone. Unrecoverable. Like he took the money out to a barrel and burned it. Only he didn't get any warmth out of it in exchange.

tsujp 5y ago

Ether isn’t intended to be used as a monetary currency like a dollar (reasonable stable). Its purpose is to pay for EVM instructions which are priced in gas. This is like saying because shoes happen to be worth money (sneakers/trainers) and because people happen to speculate on the price of shoes that the future of money is shoes. Bitcoin claims to be currency, Ether (used to pay for execution fees on Ethereum) does not.

yoavm 5y ago

Considering the emissions of all proof-of-work-based Blockchains, he probably warmed all of us.

xzjis 5y ago
Since I'm mining ETH when I'm not gaming, he maybe warmed me.
vmception 5y ago
thats pretty funny but for anyone else that wants to learn about this stuff, proof of work blockchains use the same energy whether transactions occur or not ironically this seemingly would actually bolster the argument against Proof of Work, but its probably more convenient that people are easily swayed towards inaccurate arguments
noduerme 5y ago
ah. Such an easy setup, it was a sure thing I'd be second to the party.

noduerme 5y ago

At least the rest of the planet got a little warmer /s

djhworld 5y ago

> Unrecoverable. I'm not very well versed in this stuff, but surely the tokens he sent are somewhere right. Like if you sent $500k to a bank but put the wrong account number in, the $500k would still go _somewhere_. It might be difficult to recover, but it's not like the money just disappears.

askafriend 5y ago
Unfortunately in this case, there is literally nothing anyone can do. The Ethereum is sitting in dead space not associated with any address. It's literally untouchable since you cannot change the contract. Hopefully this isn't the person's life savings.
adjkant 5y ago
They are in location X and it has been written into code that there is no way to ever remove them from X. The only difference between throwing this "money" into a black hole and this is that you can see what's in this black hole once it's in there, even if you cannot remove it. The only way to ever fix this is to rewrite the history of the blockchain which means forking the entire ETH currency by getting all mining/record nodes to agree to it. Long story short: Virtually unrecoverable without large coordination from the entire ETH community.
- pvaldes 5y ago
  So all that is needed is forcing a bunch of people to do something. Not much different than forcing a lot of people to do to war, so not impossible. Lets imagine, hypothetically, that some mafia boss, big company, users would create a lobby, the "platform of people affected by Ethereum" that would lobby to force a fork for a fee. Lets say 50% percentage of your lost money if we are successful, that is still much better deal than having no money at all. And then would use some tool to convince/coerce/bully everybody to restore it or just would mess with the process to force it. Would be this possible or a probable outcome after enough amount of time has passed?
- RomanAlexander 5y ago
  It's a possibility if your name is Vitalik Buterin

brodo 5y ago

You have to waste energy to create ETH because ‘inflation baaad‘ but destroying ETH is possible by accident. Crypto bros should really take some macroeconomics courses.

oblio 5y ago
I recommend they start with microeconomics, though. More relatable and it would tell them about human nature, first.
0x64 5y ago
If inflation was bad, would destroying ETH not be a good thing since it leads to what's effectively an instant deflation of supply?
- vitaflo 5y ago
  Deflation of actual currency is worse as it promotes hoarding. If something becomes cheaper tomorrow than today (deflation) then I am incentivized to not spend my currency. This grinds the gears of economic activity. Of course this only matters if you expect cryptocurrency to act like a currency.
- disruptalot 5y ago
  The parent might be conflating inflation with the price of Ethereum going up? It's a common perception. But at least in the crypto world, inflation is understood as the value of the currency going down.
- sanderjd 5y ago
  Destroying ETH is indeed widely considered a good thing. Since the middle of last year, a portion of the fees for every transaction is burned and most ethereum people seem very pleased by this. I've lost track but for a long time last year, ETH was indeed deflationary. The sense is that the value of burned ETH is distributed to everyone on the network in proportion to how much ETH they have. I don't think it seems so great though...
  - 5y ago

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago

Maybe the real WETH was the friends he made along the way?

bondarchuk 5y ago

Everyone else holding eth just got a little richer :)

PotentialArt635 5y ago

Imagine doing this with your life savings

pvaldes 5y ago
Or even worse, with the life savings of other people.