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> From a starting position the main difference between the teenager and Goldman Sachs is the teenager doesn't have billions of dollars in capital. We are not t

> From a starting position the main difference between the teenager and Goldman Sachs is the teenager doesn't have billions of dollars in capital. We are not talking about capital; we are talking about access. It is undeniably true that access to the legacy financial network is permissioned. But your Ethereum transactions and your smart contracts are no less privileged than those of Goldman Sachs. And if you can create a protocol that generates interest on your users capital, they just might entrust your smart contracts with a billion dollars worth of assets. This is not speculative; it's the reality today. The reason why you keep hearing about all those DeFi hacks is because random people are building financial infrastructure (interacting with financial protocols built by other random people) without having to ask for anyone's consent or approval, and anyone in the world can use these products. You can say that this is a terrible idea, but to say that it isn't something new that blockchain has enabled is simply denial. (Crazy but true: under the EU's "Open Banking" API initiative, you are not even able to access your own account data in read-only mode, without going through a third party provider; it's only "open" to regulated entities.) > No it does not and no it is not, this is more terribly wrong mythical thinking that I hear people repeating. The design is not set in stone and there is no "nature" to it. The claim is not that there is no design space; the claim is that you are bounded by what we simply might call physical reality. You can design your messenger with end to end encryption, or without it, and that decision may be influenced by your value system. However, the decision might impose restrictions on how you can approach the problem of making multiple devices work, or a chat history, or interoperability. If you want to make it impossible for regulators to censors the financial protocols written by random teenagers (the design requirement), but you also want certain actors to be able to revert transactions, then you may find that those two goals are in tension with each other.

throwaway82652 5y ago
>We are not talking about capital; we are talking about access They are the same thing. It's true of any proof-of-work system and proof-of-stake only makes it worse. >without having to ask for anyone's consent or approval No. This is absolutely and completely wrong. Realistically you need consent of several intermediaries if you're doing business on a blockchain. The bare minimum you need is consent from the miners or stakeholders to accept your transactions. It's the same as any other financial system. What you are describing is so far from reality that it's baffling to me. >You can say that this is a terrible idea, but to say that it isn't something new that blockchain has enabled is simply denial. No I'm sorry but there's no denial. Unregulated finance isn't new. Blockchain didn't invent it at all. It is actually the default state of any finance without the proper infrastructure around it. It's extremely frustrating that anyone tries to present this as some kind of technological advance. It's not. >you are not even able to access your own account data in read-only mode, without going through a third party provider Which is exactly the same as blockchains, you need to go through a large third party network of mining pools and exchanges to access your funds. >If you want to make it impossible for regulators to censors the financial protocols written by random teenagers (the design requirement) I don't want that. That's a terrible design requirement. There is no explanation for why that is a design requirement. I'm sorry but I don't want to make it impossible to censor random teenagers (or anybody of any age) who is engaging in fraud. And no cryptocurrency can do that anyway because none of them are immune to regulation. >but you also want certain actors to be able to revert transactions, then you may find that those two goals are in tension with each other. No they are not. You seem to be suggesting that from the point of view of a financial system, all teenagers are indistinguishable from scammers. I don't know where this idea comes from. It's complete and utter nonsense.

throwaway82652 5y ago

>We are not talking about capital; we are talking about access They are the same thing. It's true of any proof-of-work system and proof-of-stake only makes it worse. >without having to ask for anyone's consent or approval No. This is absolutely and completely wrong. Realistically you need consent of several intermediaries if you're doing business on a blockchain. The bare minimum you need is consent from the miners or stakeholders to accept your transactions. It's the same as any other financial system. What you are describing is so far from reality that it's baffling to me. >You can say that this is a terrible idea, but to say that it isn't something new that blockchain has enabled is simply denial. No I'm sorry but there's no denial. Unregulated finance isn't new. Blockchain didn't invent it at all. It is actually the default state of any finance without the proper infrastructure around it. It's extremely frustrating that anyone tries to present this as some kind of technological advance. It's not. >you are not even able to access your own account data in read-only mode, without going through a third party provider Which is exactly the same as blockchains, you need to go through a large third party network of mining pools and exchanges to access your funds. >If you want to make it impossible for regulators to censors the financial protocols written by random teenagers (the design requirement) I don't want that. That's a terrible design requirement. There is no explanation for why that is a design requirement. I'm sorry but I don't want to make it impossible to censor random teenagers (or anybody of any age) who is engaging in fraud. And no cryptocurrency can do that anyway because none of them are immune to regulation. >but you also want certain actors to be able to revert transactions, then you may find that those two goals are in tension with each other. No they are not. You seem to be suggesting that from the point of view of a financial system, all teenagers are indistinguishable from scammers. I don't know where this idea comes from. It's complete and utter nonsense.