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You're only illustrating the fact that given an honest error in crypto, reversibility tends to be the exception, not a rule. While in traditional finance it's t

You're only illustrating the fact that given an honest error in crypto, reversibility tends to be the exception, not a rule. While in traditional finance it's the reverse. Taking any one scenario where it didn't work out that way is highly selective cherry picking. There is not functional equivalence between "almost always impossible" and "almost always possible".

SilasX 5y ago
It’s only the rule in normal banking if you restrict your domain to large, powerful banks. Anyone else is on their own. Elaboration: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31139114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31139114
tyrfing 5y ago
It's a counterexample, not an attempt to prove equivalence. Banks-as-middlemen allow reversing just about anything on the basis of firm handshakes, with little regard to the wishes of the parties they stand in for. Taking "reverse" to mean "do it again in the other direction" and "reversible" to mean "untrusted parties delegate control to intermediaries who trust each other", both of which are true here, means it's perfectly compatible with crypto. It does render any advantages moot, but avoiding the latter is typically the goal, and this linguistic sleight of hand obscures it. For the actual topic, I don't have any respect for these ICOs/mints/[newest renaming], they're shameless cash grabs with 98% marketing and 2% upwork-tier code. However, you can burn a million quid; I don't think it's a big deal that you can burn 34 million in digital currency due to extreme negligence.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  > However, you can burn a million quid KLF much?
- ineedasername 5y ago
  counterexample, not an attempt to prove equivalence. That's fair, I just see lots of discussions where single examples are used to (often literally) say "that's no different from other finance". And I agree reversibility can be built for crypto, it's just that right now that is not the norm, and defi probably won't see wide adoption until that changes a bit.

SilasX 5y ago

It’s only the rule in normal banking if you restrict your domain to large, powerful banks. Anyone else is on their own. Elaboration: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31139114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31139114

tyrfing 5y ago

It's a counterexample, not an attempt to prove equivalence. Banks-as-middlemen allow reversing just about anything on the basis of firm handshakes, with little regard to the wishes of the parties they stand in for. Taking "reverse" to mean "do it again in the other direction" and "reversible" to mean "untrusted parties delegate control to intermediaries who trust each other", both of which are true here, means it's perfectly compatible with crypto. It does render any advantages moot, but avoiding the latter is typically the goal, and this linguistic sleight of hand obscures it. For the actual topic, I don't have any respect for these ICOs/mints/[newest renaming], they're shameless cash grabs with 98% marketing and 2% upwork-tier code. However, you can burn a million quid; I don't think it's a big deal that you can burn 34 million in digital currency due to extreme negligence.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
> However, you can burn a million quid KLF much?
ineedasername 5y ago
counterexample, not an attempt to prove equivalence. That's fair, I just see lots of discussions where single examples are used to (often literally) say "that's no different from other finance". And I agree reversibility can be built for crypto, it's just that right now that is not the norm, and defi probably won't see wide adoption until that changes a bit.