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Do you think that a bank or a government would've handled fixing such a flaw as well has optimism did? All tokenization schemes are ponzi scams including USD,

Do you think that a bank or a government would've handled fixing such a flaw as well has optimism did? All tokenization schemes are ponzi scams including USD, it's just that some use violence to stay relevant, and other use bug bounties.

jollybean 5y ago
"Do you think that a bank or a government would've handled fixing such a flaw as well has optimism did?" It's irrelevant. We don't use 'algorithms as ownership' in the real world. We use social agreements like contract law to undo problems. "All tokenization schemes are ponzi scams including USD, it's just that some use violence to stay relevant, and other use bug bounties." We use the law to maintain civil infrastructure. Yes, if someone wants to murder you or someone else, or launder billions, we'll use violence to stop them. An algorithm that is effectively used as a Pyramid Scheme is not going to save your from anything.
- __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
  It can take years for contract law to get in front of a judge and be enforced, often the damage that can be done in that interval is significant. So I think they timeliness is indeed relevant. As for your murder comment, I'm not saying that violence is strictly unnecessary, just that the coincidence of "we have the guns" with "we issue the ponzi tokens" is probably not the only way to enforce the law.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > the coincidence of "we have the guns" with "we issue the ponzi tokens" is probably not the only way to enforce the law. Not "the only way", perhaps, but AFAICS the only way that makes sense. Sure, "the law is an ass" and "the querns of law grind exceedingly slow" and all that... But still, it's the worst alternative except for having no law, right? So if you want the rule of law, the law needs to have the biggest guns. And why would anyone want anyone but the law to issue the tokens of lawful commerce?
skizm 5y ago
Banks or stock exchanges would just revert any bad transactions like they do with most scams, thefts, or accidents. It is built into the current system by design.
- __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
  They revert the money (if they like you), but usually if money flows one way, something else flows the other way, and they can't revert that half of the fraudulent transactions without great expenditure. Often it's not worth it and they just write it off and the whole economy bears the cost. I'm not saying it's a better or worse plan than whatever might happen under an alternative system, but just that it's not exactly a clean solution either.
  - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
    I think your premise is fundamentally wrong there. Say I buy something my credit card but it's never delivered. My bank will reverse that transaction - exactly because half of the transaction never occurred. The way that the credit card system works in the US is fundamentally biased towards consumer protection, because that's an explicit policy objective. The same with the Direct Debit guarantee in the UK, or the various laws which limit the maximum exposure due to fraudulent use of payment cards. And when exchanges break trades, they undo the entire transaction - you don't end up with one party out cash or shares.
    - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
      The lack of agility shows up when I buy something with your credit card number. It gets delivered, and then the bank reverses the transaction because they later learn that I'm not you. Now I get a bank-subsidized thing and you're not missing any money. It creates a drag on the whole economy, because instead of doing productive work to get the thing, it's often easier to play games with the system. The fact that credit cards use a symmetric key to authorize spend is a glaring flaw. The technology to fix it (asymmetric key cryptography) has been around for decades. But instead of fixing it, the credit card companies just keep writing off the instances of fraud.
colesantiago 5y ago
I have no problem with white hat hackers, I'm saying more power to them in the broken web3 space, which that is a complete scam. However, I can use USD, GBP or any fiat currency in my local grocery store. Can I use Bitcoin, Shib, Doge, or even Orchid at my grocery store without waiting hours in the queue for the transaction to complete and no huge fees?
- __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
  Not yet, but I don't think that we're too far away from using USD, GBP or any fiat currency as a unit of account at the POS and letting software handle ensuring that the buyer loses whatever assets they want to pay in and the seller receives whatever assets they want to be paid in. But that's orthogonal to how quickly the maintainers of these tokens can make changes in response to threats.
  - colesantiago 5y ago
    So no then? Over a decade later and I still cannot use any of them at the restaurant or without waiting in the queue for the transaction to settle and paying more for the fees than the goods itself.
    - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
      It took 100 years for steam engines to start outperforming horses, why is it so damning that crypto isn't yet outperforming fiat after a decade and change?
      - CRConrad 5y ago
        Please stop using "crypto" and "fiat" as if they were opposites. "Crypto" is just as "fiat" as any Royal Mint; it's just that the fiat-ers[1] are different people. They just want to muscle in on the "make the tokens that everyone else's transactions are counted in" business niche, because they reckon the makers can always somehow skim a bit off the top. ___ [1]: lit. "makers": "Fiat" is Latin for "let there be made", a form of the verb "to make". It's a cognate of modern French "faire", Italian "fare", etc. (Related words are "fact" and "factory".)
jokethrowaway 5y ago
I agree the government would be way worse at dealing with this flaw - but they probably would have just reversed whatever exploited transactions they needed. Or even just printed some more money to make everyone pay at the latest.
Sparkyte 5y ago
To be fair we should be weary of both systems. Crypto isn't something sustainable in the long run. USD isn't a ponzi scheme, it is backed by commerce. Crypto isn't the multi sales and trades of goods are what dictate the value of the currency.

jollybean 5y ago

"Do you think that a bank or a government would've handled fixing such a flaw as well has optimism did?" It's irrelevant. We don't use 'algorithms as ownership' in the real world. We use social agreements like contract law to undo problems. "All tokenization schemes are ponzi scams including USD, it's just that some use violence to stay relevant, and other use bug bounties." We use the law to maintain civil infrastructure. Yes, if someone wants to murder you or someone else, or launder billions, we'll use violence to stop them. An algorithm that is effectively used as a Pyramid Scheme is not going to save your from anything.

__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
It can take years for contract law to get in front of a judge and be enforced, often the damage that can be done in that interval is significant. So I think they timeliness is indeed relevant. As for your murder comment, I'm not saying that violence is strictly unnecessary, just that the coincidence of "we have the guns" with "we issue the ponzi tokens" is probably not the only way to enforce the law.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > the coincidence of "we have the guns" with "we issue the ponzi tokens" is probably not the only way to enforce the law. Not "the only way", perhaps, but AFAICS the only way that makes sense. Sure, "the law is an ass" and "the querns of law grind exceedingly slow" and all that... But still, it's the worst alternative except for having no law, right? So if you want the rule of law, the law needs to have the biggest guns. And why would anyone want anyone but the law to issue the tokens of lawful commerce?

skizm 5y ago

Banks or stock exchanges would just revert any bad transactions like they do with most scams, thefts, or accidents. It is built into the current system by design.

__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
They revert the money (if they like you), but usually if money flows one way, something else flows the other way, and they can't revert that half of the fraudulent transactions without great expenditure. Often it's not worth it and they just write it off and the whole economy bears the cost. I'm not saying it's a better or worse plan than whatever might happen under an alternative system, but just that it's not exactly a clean solution either.
- NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
  I think your premise is fundamentally wrong there. Say I buy something my credit card but it's never delivered. My bank will reverse that transaction - exactly because half of the transaction never occurred. The way that the credit card system works in the US is fundamentally biased towards consumer protection, because that's an explicit policy objective. The same with the Direct Debit guarantee in the UK, or the various laws which limit the maximum exposure due to fraudulent use of payment cards. And when exchanges break trades, they undo the entire transaction - you don't end up with one party out cash or shares.
  - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
    The lack of agility shows up when I buy something with your credit card number. It gets delivered, and then the bank reverses the transaction because they later learn that I'm not you. Now I get a bank-subsidized thing and you're not missing any money. It creates a drag on the whole economy, because instead of doing productive work to get the thing, it's often easier to play games with the system. The fact that credit cards use a symmetric key to authorize spend is a glaring flaw. The technology to fix it (asymmetric key cryptography) has been around for decades. But instead of fixing it, the credit card companies just keep writing off the instances of fraud.

colesantiago 5y ago

I have no problem with white hat hackers, I'm saying more power to them in the broken web3 space, which that is a complete scam. However, I can use USD, GBP or any fiat currency in my local grocery store. Can I use Bitcoin, Shib, Doge, or even Orchid at my grocery store without waiting hours in the queue for the transaction to complete and no huge fees?

__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
Not yet, but I don't think that we're too far away from using USD, GBP or any fiat currency as a unit of account at the POS and letting software handle ensuring that the buyer loses whatever assets they want to pay in and the seller receives whatever assets they want to be paid in. But that's orthogonal to how quickly the maintainers of these tokens can make changes in response to threats.
- colesantiago 5y ago
  So no then? Over a decade later and I still cannot use any of them at the restaurant or without waiting in the queue for the transaction to settle and paying more for the fees than the goods itself.
  - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
    It took 100 years for steam engines to start outperforming horses, why is it so damning that crypto isn't yet outperforming fiat after a decade and change?
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      Please stop using "crypto" and "fiat" as if they were opposites. "Crypto" is just as "fiat" as any Royal Mint; it's just that the fiat-ers[1] are different people. They just want to muscle in on the "make the tokens that everyone else's transactions are counted in" business niche, because they reckon the makers can always somehow skim a bit off the top. ___ [1]: lit. "makers": "Fiat" is Latin for "let there be made", a form of the verb "to make". It's a cognate of modern French "faire", Italian "fare", etc. (Related words are "fact" and "factory".)

jokethrowaway 5y ago

I agree the government would be way worse at dealing with this flaw - but they probably would have just reversed whatever exploited transactions they needed. Or even just printed some more money to make everyone pay at the latest.

Sparkyte 5y ago

To be fair we should be weary of both systems. Crypto isn't something sustainable in the long run. USD isn't a ponzi scheme, it is backed by commerce. Crypto isn't the multi sales and trades of goods are what dictate the value of the currency.