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It's not making accounting public. It's making accounting public in a way that you can't dupe the public. There's a question if that's possible, but you're argu

It's not making accounting public. It's making accounting public in a way that you can't dupe the public. There's a question if that's possible, but you're arguing against a straw man here. I'm skeptical that they'll come up with something that convinces everyone that their new version of public accounting can be trusted, but maybe there's something novel they can come up with that will convince the skeptics.

indymike 4y ago
Someone will just use this as plot armor for a scam.
- viscanti 4y ago
  Which probably won't convince those of us who are skeptics that it's possible. It needs to be technically possible, but easy enough to verify for the average user that someone can't just claim they're doing it the right way but doing something fraudulent instead. There's good reason to be skeptical here. But arguing that all they're trying to do is make public accounting isn't the right counter argument here.
  - indymike 4y ago
    > But arguing that all they're trying to do is make public accounting isn't the right counter argument here. This will not solve human moral turpitude that leverages technology to self-enrich at the expense of others.
kordlessagain 4y ago
If you want to make accounting public, go dig giant limestone disks out of that island with cannibals on it, then bring them back and put them on the beach so everyone can see them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones
lazide 4y ago
The issue here is that making money by holding onto assets you can’t fundamentally make money by holding is hard. There is a huge incentive to do things that people don’t actually want you doing, so someone can actually make money. Accounting is just a word for tracking money. It can be opaque, or obvious, detailed, or vague. And it can also be fake. Knowing which is which, and if it is appropriate or not, is almost always specific to the circumstances and the goals of whoever is doing it, and that’s pretty fundamental. GAAP is a generally acceptable list of practices for public entities, but there are still a ton of judgement calls going on there, and have to be, for what is a pretty ‘standard’ way to operate pretty standard businesses. There is no automated way to do it that won’t allow manipulation. Attempts at automating it are more likely to provide something like bank account statements, than a balance sheet. Which is something, but it’s not enough. That’s what is generally referred to as book keeping (aka transactions are recorded, but not necessarily characterized or organized correctly), but may even fall short of that.
- hanklazard 4y ago
  “The issue here is that making money by holding onto assets you can’t fundamentally make money by holding is hard.” They can make plenty of money through volume (fees), while holding the crypto 1:1. Sounds relatively easy to me. That’s the baffling thing about FTX/Alameda. FTX on its own could be a nice profitable business, yet it seems they got greedy by lending customer funds to the hedge fund-y sister company.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Not as easily (short term) as they can by walking away with billions in the raw money though. And fees get competitive, it’s inevitably a race to the bottom, where firms need to spend a lot of money competing on things like long term reputation. Meanwhile if they screw up in their security, they’re also liable for huge multiples of those fees in losses. And if someone pops up that charges less fees, and seems ok enough, a lot of the money moves there quickly, until there is a scandal anyway. It requires a mature organization who has strong controls and bulletproof working processes to avoid losing multiple years in fees by accident too. Not saying you’re wrong - it’s where things inevitably end up when it’s heavily regulated and watched so all the other alternatives are hard (and result in major prison time). Usually. But it should be noted that brick and mortar banks gave up on that model a very long time ago, favoring explicitly loaning out customer funds (fractional reserve banking) because it’s more sustainable for them.

indymike 4y ago

Someone will just use this as plot armor for a scam.

viscanti 4y ago
Which probably won't convince those of us who are skeptics that it's possible. It needs to be technically possible, but easy enough to verify for the average user that someone can't just claim they're doing it the right way but doing something fraudulent instead. There's good reason to be skeptical here. But arguing that all they're trying to do is make public accounting isn't the right counter argument here.
- indymike 4y ago
  > But arguing that all they're trying to do is make public accounting isn't the right counter argument here. This will not solve human moral turpitude that leverages technology to self-enrich at the expense of others.

kordlessagain 4y ago

If you want to make accounting public, go dig giant limestone disks out of that island with cannibals on it, then bring them back and put them on the beach so everyone can see them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones

lazide 4y ago

The issue here is that making money by holding onto assets you can’t fundamentally make money by holding is hard. There is a huge incentive to do things that people don’t actually want you doing, so someone can actually make money. Accounting is just a word for tracking money. It can be opaque, or obvious, detailed, or vague. And it can also be fake. Knowing which is which, and if it is appropriate or not, is almost always specific to the circumstances and the goals of whoever is doing it, and that’s pretty fundamental. GAAP is a generally acceptable list of practices for public entities, but there are still a ton of judgement calls going on there, and have to be, for what is a pretty ‘standard’ way to operate pretty standard businesses. There is no automated way to do it that won’t allow manipulation. Attempts at automating it are more likely to provide something like bank account statements, than a balance sheet. Which is something, but it’s not enough. That’s what is generally referred to as book keeping (aka transactions are recorded, but not necessarily characterized or organized correctly), but may even fall short of that.

hanklazard 4y ago
“The issue here is that making money by holding onto assets you can’t fundamentally make money by holding is hard.” They can make plenty of money through volume (fees), while holding the crypto 1:1. Sounds relatively easy to me. That’s the baffling thing about FTX/Alameda. FTX on its own could be a nice profitable business, yet it seems they got greedy by lending customer funds to the hedge fund-y sister company.
- lazide 4y ago
  Not as easily (short term) as they can by walking away with billions in the raw money though. And fees get competitive, it’s inevitably a race to the bottom, where firms need to spend a lot of money competing on things like long term reputation. Meanwhile if they screw up in their security, they’re also liable for huge multiples of those fees in losses. And if someone pops up that charges less fees, and seems ok enough, a lot of the money moves there quickly, until there is a scandal anyway. It requires a mature organization who has strong controls and bulletproof working processes to avoid losing multiple years in fees by accident too. Not saying you’re wrong - it’s where things inevitably end up when it’s heavily regulated and watched so all the other alternatives are hard (and result in major prison time). Usually. But it should be noted that brick and mortar banks gave up on that model a very long time ago, favoring explicitly loaning out customer funds (fractional reserve banking) because it’s more sustainable for them.