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This is not guaranteed as a general property of blockchain systems, but can be guaranteed on a case-by-case basis by the immutable nature of smart-contract syst

by derefr 4y ago

This is not guaranteed as a general property of blockchain systems, but can be guaranteed on a case-by-case basis by the immutable nature of smart-contract systems. I.e., if a centralized system sets up a lockup contract such that value can be forcibly unlocked by making a request on the blockchain side, and the centralized system just has to observe the event and deal with that — then for the company running the centralized system, that contract becomes an immutable part of "the way things are"; they can't decide to later renege on it, keeping people's funds locked up, because nothing can change the working of the [non-upgradable] contract once deployed — it just "is what it is." By deploying such an immutable contract to be the custodian of customer funds, such an entity is essentially making a hard/inescapable precommitment to doing for users, whatever the contract happens to do. In a sense, the central entity's owner is not the true custodian of people's locked funds; rather, the contract itself is, and the contract can be independently audited by anyone who cares, before anyone begins using it, to prove that it will only ever be able to act in the public interest, rather than in the corporation's interest.

cryvate1284 4y ago
Why can't they renege on it? What if a judge orders them renege?
- derefr 4y ago
  They technologically cannot. The central entity has no power to decide to keep user funds, nor can anyone compel them to do so, because they don't truly have the user funds in their possession; rather, the contract has control of the funds, and they don't control the contract, the immutable rules burned into the contract upon its creation control the contract. The central entity get to initially craft those rules however they like, and so can certainly design the contract to act favorably to them; but then the contract gets (immutably) deployed, and everyone else then gets the opportunity to look at the rules of the contract-as-deployed, to decide for themselves if they're equitable. If they're not, nobody will bother to interact with the contract.
  - RandomLensman 4y ago
    Societies (and their evolutions) don't run by truly immutable rules - so having truly immutable things is placing things outside of them in a way. Would mean either the use cases for immutable rules are highly regulated and limited or there has to be a way to change them.
    - derefr 4y ago
      The immutability of a blockchain isn't fundamental; it's rooted in the consensus of the chain state. Look at the Ethereum "The DAO" state-fix hard-fork: if the entire community of node operators agrees to forcefully alter the state-database of the chain, they can do arbitrarily anything they like to that state. But crucially, this "community of node operators" consists of a multilateral coalition of people and companies operating under every different society / government jurisdiction on the planet, with no single government that can compel enough operators at once to actually get the majority required to compel the state of the blockchain to change. In other words, blockchains are systems with democratic recourse, but not authoritarian recourse. They can be altered from the bottom up to fix problems caused by immutability, if basically "a referendum run against a representative sampling of the population of Earth" agrees with the alteration; but they cannot be commanded to change from the top down, just because some individual entity with a conflux of power wants it to happen. No legal system can force a smart contract to do what you like; but common sense and human empathy can still override bad machine decisions when necessary.
      - RandomLensman 4y ago
        Very bold societal proposal to abandon the rule of law (in parts), but it is an intriguing way to consider certain things - is there data on how stuff like that (i.e. consensus forming in good ways) performs through big changes in societies?
      - TomSwirly 4y ago
        So we can choose rule of law, or cryptocurrencies? I vote for rule of law, 100%. > In other words, blockchains are systems with democratic recourse, but not authoritarian recourse. No, "lawful" and "authoritarian" are not synonyms. No, letting people "vote" with their money is not democracy. You pervert the meanings of the words sufficiently that you have literally reversed their meanings. Laws are created by the people's representatives, who are elected democratically.

by derefr 4y ago

cryvate1284 4y ago

Why can't they renege on it? What if a judge orders them renege?

derefr 4y ago
They technologically cannot. The central entity has no power to decide to keep user funds, nor can anyone compel them to do so, because they don't truly have the user funds in their possession; rather, the contract has control of the funds, and they don't control the contract, the immutable rules burned into the contract upon its creation control the contract. The central entity get to initially craft those rules however they like, and so can certainly design the contract to act favorably to them; but then the contract gets (immutably) deployed, and everyone else then gets the opportunity to look at the rules of the contract-as-deployed, to decide for themselves if they're equitable. If they're not, nobody will bother to interact with the contract.
- RandomLensman 4y ago
  Societies (and their evolutions) don't run by truly immutable rules - so having truly immutable things is placing things outside of them in a way. Would mean either the use cases for immutable rules are highly regulated and limited or there has to be a way to change them.
  - derefr 4y ago
    The immutability of a blockchain isn't fundamental; it's rooted in the consensus of the chain state. Look at the Ethereum "The DAO" state-fix hard-fork: if the entire community of node operators agrees to forcefully alter the state-database of the chain, they can do arbitrarily anything they like to that state. But crucially, this "community of node operators" consists of a multilateral coalition of people and companies operating under every different society / government jurisdiction on the planet, with no single government that can compel enough operators at once to actually get the majority required to compel the state of the blockchain to change. In other words, blockchains are systems with democratic recourse, but not authoritarian recourse. They can be altered from the bottom up to fix problems caused by immutability, if basically "a referendum run against a representative sampling of the population of Earth" agrees with the alteration; but they cannot be commanded to change from the top down, just because some individual entity with a conflux of power wants it to happen. No legal system can force a smart contract to do what you like; but common sense and human empathy can still override bad machine decisions when necessary.
    - RandomLensman 4y ago
      Very bold societal proposal to abandon the rule of law (in parts), but it is an intriguing way to consider certain things - is there data on how stuff like that (i.e. consensus forming in good ways) performs through big changes in societies?
    - TomSwirly 4y ago
      So we can choose rule of law, or cryptocurrencies? I vote for rule of law, 100%. > In other words, blockchains are systems with democratic recourse, but not authoritarian recourse. No, "lawful" and "authoritarian" are not synonyms. No, letting people "vote" with their money is not democracy. You pervert the meanings of the words sufficiently that you have literally reversed their meanings. Laws are created by the people's representatives, who are elected democratically.