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Back in the day $440M loss due to coding error was a landmark warning case. How could this happen?? In 2021 alone something like $10B was lost due to bugs in d

Back in the day $440M loss due to coding error was a landmark warning case. How could this happen?? In 2021 alone something like $10B was lost due to bugs in defi land. Something about the worst possible thing could happen tends to happen eventually and it gets worse every passing year.

nikanj 4y ago
Those $440M were lost by rich people who had invested in a hedge fund, not poor people who bought crypto lottery tickets in the hopes of getting rich quick
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Also a fuck load of money had been printed in the mean time. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
pingeroo 4y ago
Was just about to comment along these lines. If I read about this a few years ago I would be shocked. Now after seeing so many flubs in the crypto space, my reaction is just 'meh'
vmception 4y ago
I actually always think of the Knight case and similar ones when people see a DeFi organization have an issue and extrapolate that to an issue with the entire DeFi concept. Its so obvious that those people have no clue whats going on in the markets they respect. Truth be told, many of them dont like markets at all. So its just a lack of exposure and compounded ignorance.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  Many traditional finance issues are fixable though, there are many more errors which don’t become big stories because they are reasonably reversed as only minor inconveniences.
  - vmception 4y ago
    like how Credit Suisse is going to reverse their Bill Hwang losses? I guess in this conversation we can't distinguish from irreversible asset value and liquidity issue to misdirected transactions that inherit partial reversibility. similarly, maybe you/they just don't see the headlines of thwarted attacks in DeFi that work specifically due to design considerations. I'll take the permission to fail. The rapid iteration creates some really fascinating systems in very short time periods, for me. One project implodes, 100 (or 1000) more harden, bigger money comes in creating more assurances for users like easier recovery and compensation paths, all while continuing to rapidly iterate.
    - ricardobeat 4y ago
      Where is this innovation happening? We’ve had crypto for 13 years now, and just yesterday we had people flat out losing 10k into the ether because their transaction “ran out of gas” without completing. Isn’t that plenty of time to develop systems that avoid basic issues like suddenly burning all your money?
      - colechristensen 4y ago
        It doesn’t really seem to be innovation, just rediscovering 100 year old scams and failures that have to be readdressed.
      - vmception 4y ago
        So, what discussion are you willing to have? For your strawman argument, all of their client side wallets told them “its not worth it bro”, the people did it anyway. Thats a consumer issue not a technology issue.
      - snapcaster 4y ago
        I'm generally skeptical of ethereum but i don't think this claim is quite right. First, they didn't lose 10k "into the ether" it just went to miners as a fee for processing their transaction. Additionally, the fee was paid for priority. There is a limited amount of block space so people can pay extra to make sure they're included. I know it's cliche but this is literally a feature not a bug

nikanj 4y ago

Those $440M were lost by rich people who had invested in a hedge fund, not poor people who bought crypto lottery tickets in the hopes of getting rich quick

quickthrower2 4y ago
Also a fuck load of money had been printed in the mean time. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

pingeroo 4y ago

Was just about to comment along these lines. If I read about this a few years ago I would be shocked. Now after seeing so many flubs in the crypto space, my reaction is just 'meh'

vmception 4y ago

I actually always think of the Knight case and similar ones when people see a DeFi organization have an issue and extrapolate that to an issue with the entire DeFi concept. Its so obvious that those people have no clue whats going on in the markets they respect. Truth be told, many of them dont like markets at all. So its just a lack of exposure and compounded ignorance.

colechristensen 4y ago
Many traditional finance issues are fixable though, there are many more errors which don’t become big stories because they are reasonably reversed as only minor inconveniences.
- vmception 4y ago
  like how Credit Suisse is going to reverse their Bill Hwang losses? I guess in this conversation we can't distinguish from irreversible asset value and liquidity issue to misdirected transactions that inherit partial reversibility. similarly, maybe you/they just don't see the headlines of thwarted attacks in DeFi that work specifically due to design considerations. I'll take the permission to fail. The rapid iteration creates some really fascinating systems in very short time periods, for me. One project implodes, 100 (or 1000) more harden, bigger money comes in creating more assurances for users like easier recovery and compensation paths, all while continuing to rapidly iterate.
  - ricardobeat 4y ago
    Where is this innovation happening? We’ve had crypto for 13 years now, and just yesterday we had people flat out losing 10k into the ether because their transaction “ran out of gas” without completing. Isn’t that plenty of time to develop systems that avoid basic issues like suddenly burning all your money?
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      It doesn’t really seem to be innovation, just rediscovering 100 year old scams and failures that have to be readdressed.
    - vmception 4y ago
      So, what discussion are you willing to have? For your strawman argument, all of their client side wallets told them “its not worth it bro”, the people did it anyway. Thats a consumer issue not a technology issue.
    - snapcaster 4y ago
      I'm generally skeptical of ethereum but i don't think this claim is quite right. First, they didn't lose 10k "into the ether" it just went to miners as a fee for processing their transaction. Additionally, the fee was paid for priority. There is a limited amount of block space so people can pay extra to make sure they're included. I know it's cliche but this is literally a feature not a bug