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This was an absolutely fascinating and chilling story. The thing that struck me about it is the scam didn't work for a few reasons: 1. He typically had a prac

by kelp 5y ago

This was an absolutely fascinating and chilling story. The thing that struck me about it is the scam didn't work for a few reasons: 1. He typically had a practice of not using his main wallet for things like this. 2. He got wary and actually read the smart contracts. This is a level of technical competence required that's going to mean most people have to offload this to a trusted intermediary. And then what's the point of all the decentralization ideology? Because we just re-invented banks.

tylersmith 5y ago
The purpose of decentralization is solely censorship resistance. It has nothing to do with consumer protections, consumer education, or easier to check software.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  Censorship and consumer protections go together since they're both roles regulators play.
  - tylersmith 5y ago
    Decentralization can't provide consumer protections regardless of what regulators do. The one thing it can do is resist censorship and things indistinguishable from censorship, like software failure.
- elil17 5y ago
  What exactly is censored when you use paper currency?
  - randomhodler84 5y ago
    The amount. A real example is CNY, which is limit to 100 yuan notes, deliberately to make it hard to move large sums. 1000 USD bills exist but are very rare. 1000 euro note exists but I think that’s on the way out. Your point that cash is censorship resistant is good, yes and we need to make sure it remains, however the physical limitations are defacto censorship.
    - logifail 5y ago
      > 1000 euro note exists but I think that’s on the way out €500 was the largest, but as of April 2019 is no longer being issued. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/banknotes/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/banknotes/html/index.en.html
      - randomhodler84 5y ago
        My mistake. That’s that one I was referring to, the 500, being phased out. Thanks
    - sofixa 5y ago
      How is it censorship? Moving large amounts of cash is impractical due to physical constraints, but is still possible. And there are legitimate concerns at play for those limitations.
    - elil17 5y ago
      Sounds like something that only impacts rich people (aka almost no one). Also I’m not sure that “censor” means what you think it means.
    - lostcolony 5y ago
      >> 1000 USD bills exist but are very rare. Technically, $500, $5000, and $10000 also exist in private collections. They were last printed in 1945, and stopped being issued in 1969. They're worth far more than their denomination to collectors, understandably. Also, technically, $100k bills exist. They, however, were printed during the Great Depression and intended solely for transfers between federal reserve banks, and were never circulated. It's illegal to hold them privately, though there are some museums and things that have one.
  - tylersmith 5y ago
    Cash has pretty decent censorship resistance. It's when going digital that it gets difficult because you either need a centralized clearinghouse to prevent double spends (Visa, PayPal, etc) or a BFT consensus algorithm ("cryptocurrency"). I'm fact when discussing both privacy and censorship resistance I often cite cash as a target goal.
charcircuit 5y ago
>And then what's the point of all the decentralization ideology? Because we just re-invented banks. There's nothing wrong with centralized services built on a decentralized network. Take a look at the web. Sure you can use a centralized service like facebook to make a facebook page, but if you want you can host your own website.
- cdata 5y ago
  Sorry, but that's exactly what is wrong with the web, and what we strive to "fix" about it when we build decentralized alternatives to centralized infrastructure. It is a systemic failure that most users must "fail over" to a centralized service to publish on the web. The conceptual improvement enabled by blockchain is that the data layer is a neutral plane and this theoretically gives users portability. But, to say that centralization is fine because it has happened on the web and that was also fine is rationalizing a bad thing as good actually.
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    no it's not a bad thing at all. it's not a systemic failure, it's division of labor and people need to stop being willfully ignorant of economics. Lawyers are good at reading contracts, Facebook is good at running servers. Medium is good at publishing your things and getting you ad revenue. sending http and json over the internet is just as neutral of a technology as the blockchain. the reason people build centralized services on top of it is that we're collectively better off by specializing. As a writer you're better off writing your content full-time than running a server, becoming a smart contract expert, casual coder and server administrator. no technology on earth is going to change that fact and it's why people buy their bitcoin on coinbase and their nfts on opensea.
    - cdata 5y ago
      No-one is better off concentrating power in a centralized authority with the scale and (lack of) accountability of Facebook. Specialization doesn't come into it, although it is worth observing: your comment presupposes that in order to benefit from specialization, one must subject themself to exploitation.

by kelp 5y ago

tylersmith 5y ago

The purpose of decentralization is solely censorship resistance. It has nothing to do with consumer protections, consumer education, or easier to check software.

dehrmann 5y ago
Censorship and consumer protections go together since they're both roles regulators play.
- tylersmith 5y ago
  Decentralization can't provide consumer protections regardless of what regulators do. The one thing it can do is resist censorship and things indistinguishable from censorship, like software failure.
elil17 5y ago
What exactly is censored when you use paper currency?
- randomhodler84 5y ago
  The amount. A real example is CNY, which is limit to 100 yuan notes, deliberately to make it hard to move large sums. 1000 USD bills exist but are very rare. 1000 euro note exists but I think that’s on the way out. Your point that cash is censorship resistant is good, yes and we need to make sure it remains, however the physical limitations are defacto censorship.
  - logifail 5y ago
    > 1000 euro note exists but I think that’s on the way out €500 was the largest, but as of April 2019 is no longer being issued. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/banknotes/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/banknotes/html/index.en.html
    - randomhodler84 5y ago
      My mistake. That’s that one I was referring to, the 500, being phased out. Thanks
  - sofixa 5y ago
    How is it censorship? Moving large amounts of cash is impractical due to physical constraints, but is still possible. And there are legitimate concerns at play for those limitations.
  - elil17 5y ago
    Sounds like something that only impacts rich people (aka almost no one). Also I’m not sure that “censor” means what you think it means.
  - lostcolony 5y ago
    >> 1000 USD bills exist but are very rare. Technically, $500, $5000, and $10000 also exist in private collections. They were last printed in 1945, and stopped being issued in 1969. They're worth far more than their denomination to collectors, understandably. Also, technically, $100k bills exist. They, however, were printed during the Great Depression and intended solely for transfers between federal reserve banks, and were never circulated. It's illegal to hold them privately, though there are some museums and things that have one.
- tylersmith 5y ago
  Cash has pretty decent censorship resistance. It's when going digital that it gets difficult because you either need a centralized clearinghouse to prevent double spends (Visa, PayPal, etc) or a BFT consensus algorithm ("cryptocurrency"). I'm fact when discussing both privacy and censorship resistance I often cite cash as a target goal.

charcircuit 5y ago

>And then what's the point of all the decentralization ideology? Because we just re-invented banks. There's nothing wrong with centralized services built on a decentralized network. Take a look at the web. Sure you can use a centralized service like facebook to make a facebook page, but if you want you can host your own website.

cdata 5y ago
Sorry, but that's exactly what is wrong with the web, and what we strive to "fix" about it when we build decentralized alternatives to centralized infrastructure. It is a systemic failure that most users must "fail over" to a centralized service to publish on the web. The conceptual improvement enabled by blockchain is that the data layer is a neutral plane and this theoretically gives users portability. But, to say that centralization is fine because it has happened on the web and that was also fine is rationalizing a bad thing as good actually.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  no it's not a bad thing at all. it's not a systemic failure, it's division of labor and people need to stop being willfully ignorant of economics. Lawyers are good at reading contracts, Facebook is good at running servers. Medium is good at publishing your things and getting you ad revenue. sending http and json over the internet is just as neutral of a technology as the blockchain. the reason people build centralized services on top of it is that we're collectively better off by specializing. As a writer you're better off writing your content full-time than running a server, becoming a smart contract expert, casual coder and server administrator. no technology on earth is going to change that fact and it's why people buy their bitcoin on coinbase and their nfts on opensea.
  - cdata 5y ago
    No-one is better off concentrating power in a centralized authority with the scale and (lack of) accountability of Facebook. Specialization doesn't come into it, although it is worth observing: your comment presupposes that in order to benefit from specialization, one must subject themself to exploitation.