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> I would urge people to be a little more circumspect about cryptocurrency technologies. Good ideas will out. In crypto, they don't even have to be good, just

> I would urge people to be a little more circumspect about cryptocurrency technologies. Good ideas will out. In crypto, they don't even have to be good, just not utterly shite, corrupt or broken. crypto as cash, has it's downsides, (total visibility, low transaction volume, difficult to secure) but it more or less works. legally, thats pretty simple. all you have to do is make people think 1 token is worth is x dollars. The problem is, people think that you can apply the same logic to everything else. looks at the NFT crowd The big problem is that for legal stuff, you can't just go full digital. You need to provide a stable and workable link to "old school" legal processes for your crypto stuff to be valid. For example NFTs could have been useful, if they were backed by a real contract system. The price that they were going for, it would have been simple, if it wasn't money laundering. Allowing quick and simple exchanging of digital content regardless of country of origin is a really useful tool. sure in 20 years, it might be as simple as something like a signed database update, but we've got to do the work to get there first.

nurettin 4y ago
NFTs are literally contracts. On ETH, they implement IEIP721.
- replygirl 4y ago
  smart contracts are not "literally" contracts in the legal sense, as there isn't precedent of enforceability in enough jurisdictions for any lawyer in their right mind to use a smart contract without an accompanying traditional text contract. this is taught in law schools as best practice and will be with us for at least a decade, almost certainly longer. sure some applications of smart contracts might streamline ops (international logistics comes to mind), but in a legal scope they just make things riskier and more tedious
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > smart contracts might streamline ops (international logistics comes to mind) "Smart contracts" is just code. In case of crypto this code is running on world's most innefficient VM. Elsewhere its just code and code has been runnig "contracts" for as long as there have been computers. Everytime you buy a ticket inline, there's a "smart contract" running. Everytime you listen to music inline and money get accumulated and paid to artists, there's a "smart contract". etc.
    - replygirl 4y ago
      i agree i was just trying to be generous to the believers
    - jasmer 4y ago
      The code at Ticketmaster is not a 'smart contract' - I mean it's reasonable to use that as an example to clarify the similarity between TM and 'defi contracts' - however, it truly is 'just code'. There's nothing 'contractual' about it. The 'contracts' and legal implications are signed when you accept terms (a 'contract' between you and TM), and the transfer of money for tickets is regulated by the prevailing regulatory conventions. I think NFT's may eventually become a form of 'ownership by convention' in which case maybe we could apply a general legal principle (i.e. obtaining and NFT is tantamount to accepting some legal terms). But we'll have to see.
      - dmitriid 4y ago
        There's literally nothing contractual in "smart contracts". They enforce nothing. It's just code. Ticketmaster's tickets are actually more of a contract because the ticket you get is actually covered by laws, Ticketmaster provides certain guarantees etc.
  - nurettin 4y ago
    By literally, I obviously meant that the word contract was in their name. I don't mean they are covered by state enforcement. If an NFT falls in the woods and nobody is there to hear, it has not fell.
- dopidopHN 4y ago
  Correct, but how do you enforce it? Let’s say I stole your NFT somehow or abuse it’s content by making money out of it on my own website. How would you go about a cease and desist equivalent? What could my lawyers oppose to yours. For instance if it’s a “NBA NFT” of a basket ball match snipet broadcasted on Tv and other means.
- jasmer 4y ago
  They are not 'contracts'. It's just code. Which some people can try to pass of as 'contracts', which is fine, but future magistrates will decide how much they are really contracts. That legal outcome is not clear so it's unlikely companies are going to spend a lot of time using said 'contracts' in any other terms than they use code today to do things. More likely, companies will use an 'actual contract' to clarify the meaning and use of the NFT transactions, which participants will have to sign should they want to meaningfully participate in something. Which highlights the existential problem for distributed systems in that they mostly rely on some civil 'context' which is likely going to be 'centralized' at least in the purview of the decentralized people.
- KaiserPro 4y ago
  NFTs are literally a name, a description and an URL. Does the buyer own the entire thing? a licence? can they freely re-distribute? derivative works? can they sub license? As I said, NFTs are bullshit. They don't even begin to bridge the divide between the legal and digital world. it is a high schooler's attempt at solving a problem, they got a c+

nurettin 4y ago

NFTs are literally contracts. On ETH, they implement IEIP721.

replygirl 4y ago
smart contracts are not "literally" contracts in the legal sense, as there isn't precedent of enforceability in enough jurisdictions for any lawyer in their right mind to use a smart contract without an accompanying traditional text contract. this is taught in law schools as best practice and will be with us for at least a decade, almost certainly longer. sure some applications of smart contracts might streamline ops (international logistics comes to mind), but in a legal scope they just make things riskier and more tedious
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > smart contracts might streamline ops (international logistics comes to mind) "Smart contracts" is just code. In case of crypto this code is running on world's most innefficient VM. Elsewhere its just code and code has been runnig "contracts" for as long as there have been computers. Everytime you buy a ticket inline, there's a "smart contract" running. Everytime you listen to music inline and money get accumulated and paid to artists, there's a "smart contract". etc.
  - replygirl 4y ago
    i agree i was just trying to be generous to the believers
  - jasmer 4y ago
    The code at Ticketmaster is not a 'smart contract' - I mean it's reasonable to use that as an example to clarify the similarity between TM and 'defi contracts' - however, it truly is 'just code'. There's nothing 'contractual' about it. The 'contracts' and legal implications are signed when you accept terms (a 'contract' between you and TM), and the transfer of money for tickets is regulated by the prevailing regulatory conventions. I think NFT's may eventually become a form of 'ownership by convention' in which case maybe we could apply a general legal principle (i.e. obtaining and NFT is tantamount to accepting some legal terms). But we'll have to see.
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      There's literally nothing contractual in "smart contracts". They enforce nothing. It's just code. Ticketmaster's tickets are actually more of a contract because the ticket you get is actually covered by laws, Ticketmaster provides certain guarantees etc.
- nurettin 4y ago
  By literally, I obviously meant that the word contract was in their name. I don't mean they are covered by state enforcement. If an NFT falls in the woods and nobody is there to hear, it has not fell.
dopidopHN 4y ago
Correct, but how do you enforce it? Let’s say I stole your NFT somehow or abuse it’s content by making money out of it on my own website. How would you go about a cease and desist equivalent? What could my lawyers oppose to yours. For instance if it’s a “NBA NFT” of a basket ball match snipet broadcasted on Tv and other means.
jasmer 4y ago
They are not 'contracts'. It's just code. Which some people can try to pass of as 'contracts', which is fine, but future magistrates will decide how much they are really contracts. That legal outcome is not clear so it's unlikely companies are going to spend a lot of time using said 'contracts' in any other terms than they use code today to do things. More likely, companies will use an 'actual contract' to clarify the meaning and use of the NFT transactions, which participants will have to sign should they want to meaningfully participate in something. Which highlights the existential problem for distributed systems in that they mostly rely on some civil 'context' which is likely going to be 'centralized' at least in the purview of the decentralized people.
KaiserPro 4y ago
NFTs are literally a name, a description and an URL. Does the buyer own the entire thing? a licence? can they freely re-distribute? derivative works? can they sub license? As I said, NFTs are bullshit. They don't even begin to bridge the divide between the legal and digital world. it is a high schooler's attempt at solving a problem, they got a c+