4 ms·

This is not crypto, this is Enron, Theranos and Madoff. In DeFi, you check the code once, and that's what gonna run (exception being proxy contracts, but those

by rafale 4y ago

This is not crypto, this is Enron, Theranos and Madoff. In DeFi, you check the code once, and that's what gonna run (exception being proxy contracts, but those are a red flag in itself).

anon291 4y ago
People need to understand that money is debt. That is the source of all currency (yes, even gold and other 'hard' currency). If people cannot freely create it, then it's useless. The key is that you ought to be able to gauge the money creator on their trustworthiness, which hopefully you know as a member of a small community. Or, if you are creating money on the open market to large numbers of people, often it's useful to make your case to a nexus of trust (i.e., a bank) so that more people will accept your money Unfortunately what happened here is a fraudster latched on to a movement that decried centralized trust and said that he is trustworthy and, when asked, pointed to some code that no one could inspect or understand. Simpletons believed him because they believed in the 'trust the code' hype, and believed his money was real. They were wrong. But at the end of the day, expecting code to replace the core human emotion of trust, the source of money, is ridiculous.
- gruez 4y ago
  >But at the end of the day, expecting code to replace the core human emotion of trust, the source of money, is ridiculous. No, the point is for code to replace the institutions/people that people trust (ie. trusting the bitcoin network's consensus code, rather than a central bank), not "replace the core human emotion of trust".
  - spookthesunset 4y ago
    Which works great until the core developers decide to rollback the “code is law” blockchain because there was a transaction they didn’t like. As it turns you still need to trust humans even in the world of “code is law”
    - boring_twenties 4y ago
      Not really, the community ultimately decides whether to accept such decisions via distributed consensus. In this case a huge majority went along with it, but a minority did not; see Ethereum Classic, which still kinda exists
  - sifar 4y ago
    >> No, the point is for code to replace the institutions/people that people trust Knowing how computing hardware and software works, I wouldn't put more trust in code either - in fact it would be less.
- tedk-42 4y ago
  Money is money. Debt is money from the future. Seems you don't understand.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    there is no money, it is all debt, he is right. Unless you carry around golden coins.
    - jfengel 4y ago
      Even if you carry around golden coins. They have little value, especially in coin shape. They are just unforgeable, fungible markers for debt.
  - anon291 4y ago
    And yet debt has monetary value today and can be sold for cash today. It can also be sold for goods which makes it more money like than Bitcoin. If you don't understand currency basics, I advise to stay away from crypto
  - 0xcde4c3db 4y ago
    > Debt is money from the future. By the same token, money is debt from the past. The origins of debt are ultimately material. Alice has a bushel of apples today, but Bob won't have a bushel of oranges until next month. The function of money is to decouple the general function of debt from its material details. In other words, you can have debt without money, but you cannot have money without an underlying debt.
    - wildrhythms 4y ago
      Do you actually believe all of the world's debt can be repaid?
      - 0xcde4c3db 4y ago
        Not a chance. I believe we're all mostly out here trying our best to make the numbers add up, when we're not (judiciously, I hope) looking the other way because some particular numbers offend our sensibilities. People are complicated, and economies are made of people. Money isn't a law of the universe, it's a technology we invented and (mis)apply in accordance with our values and desires.
- 8note 4y ago
  > a movement that decried centralized trust I don't think the movement cares about centralized trust? Instead it's a movement of get rich quick schemes There's some separate movement that cares about decentralization, but they're only tangentially affected because they didn't use FTX, and they don't value their crypto in terms of stuff it can buy, but how it makes them feel
gcr 4y ago
Remember what happened with the 2016 Ethereum DAO? Even expert programmers aren't able to check smart contracts for all possible issues.
- CuriousCosmic 4y ago
  That's what happens when you decide to write your smart contract language in what is basically javascript and your smart contracts are interpreted in a stack based VM. Doubly so when your contract execution is entirely determined by the order in which Tx happen to get accepted. It's actually sane when your contract is written in a non-turing-complete language with strong typing and the smart contract system has deterministic execution (i.e. you know the result when you submit the Tx and if the result would be different, the tx fails, preferably without charging you). I'm convinced that one of the main issues with most smart contracts is that they have such weak guarantees and the guarantees they do have are brittle and hidden behind complex, opaque proofs & constraint systems.
  - bogomipz 4y ago
    >"That's what happens when you decide to write your smart contract language in what is basically javascript and your smart contracts are interpreted in a stack based VM." What was the language and why did running it in a stack based VM lead to this? I'm curious about the intersection of the language and the type of VM it ran in.
    - rwmj 4y ago
      Solidity. The Wikipedia article has some more information on the problems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidity#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidity#Criticism
- spookthesunset 4y ago
  The DAO “hack” was just a legitimate transfer of wealth from weak hands to smarter hands. Code is law. All “bugs” are law too. The only people who stole anything where the devs who reversed the ethereum blockchain…

by rafale 4y ago

This is not crypto, this is Enron, Theranos and Madoff. In DeFi, you check the code once, and that's what gonna run (exception being proxy contracts, but those are a red flag in itself).

anon291 4y ago

People need to understand that money is debt. That is the source of all currency (yes, even gold and other 'hard' currency). If people cannot freely create it, then it's useless. The key is that you ought to be able to gauge the money creator on their trustworthiness, which hopefully you know as a member of a small community. Or, if you are creating money on the open market to large numbers of people, often it's useful to make your case to a nexus of trust (i.e., a bank) so that more people will accept your money Unfortunately what happened here is a fraudster latched on to a movement that decried centralized trust and said that he is trustworthy and, when asked, pointed to some code that no one could inspect or understand. Simpletons believed him because they believed in the 'trust the code' hype, and believed his money was real. They were wrong. But at the end of the day, expecting code to replace the core human emotion of trust, the source of money, is ridiculous.

gruez 4y ago
>But at the end of the day, expecting code to replace the core human emotion of trust, the source of money, is ridiculous. No, the point is for code to replace the institutions/people that people trust (ie. trusting the bitcoin network's consensus code, rather than a central bank), not "replace the core human emotion of trust".
- spookthesunset 4y ago
  Which works great until the core developers decide to rollback the “code is law” blockchain because there was a transaction they didn’t like. As it turns you still need to trust humans even in the world of “code is law”
  - boring_twenties 4y ago
    Not really, the community ultimately decides whether to accept such decisions via distributed consensus. In this case a huge majority went along with it, but a minority did not; see Ethereum Classic, which still kinda exists
- sifar 4y ago
  >> No, the point is for code to replace the institutions/people that people trust Knowing how computing hardware and software works, I wouldn't put more trust in code either - in fact it would be less.
tedk-42 4y ago
Money is money. Debt is money from the future. Seems you don't understand.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  there is no money, it is all debt, he is right. Unless you carry around golden coins.
  - jfengel 4y ago
    Even if you carry around golden coins. They have little value, especially in coin shape. They are just unforgeable, fungible markers for debt.
- anon291 4y ago
  And yet debt has monetary value today and can be sold for cash today. It can also be sold for goods which makes it more money like than Bitcoin. If you don't understand currency basics, I advise to stay away from crypto
- 0xcde4c3db 4y ago
  > Debt is money from the future. By the same token, money is debt from the past. The origins of debt are ultimately material. Alice has a bushel of apples today, but Bob won't have a bushel of oranges until next month. The function of money is to decouple the general function of debt from its material details. In other words, you can have debt without money, but you cannot have money without an underlying debt.
  - wildrhythms 4y ago
    Do you actually believe all of the world's debt can be repaid?
    - 0xcde4c3db 4y ago
      Not a chance. I believe we're all mostly out here trying our best to make the numbers add up, when we're not (judiciously, I hope) looking the other way because some particular numbers offend our sensibilities. People are complicated, and economies are made of people. Money isn't a law of the universe, it's a technology we invented and (mis)apply in accordance with our values and desires.
8note 4y ago
> a movement that decried centralized trust I don't think the movement cares about centralized trust? Instead it's a movement of get rich quick schemes There's some separate movement that cares about decentralization, but they're only tangentially affected because they didn't use FTX, and they don't value their crypto in terms of stuff it can buy, but how it makes them feel

gcr 4y ago

Remember what happened with the 2016 Ethereum DAO? Even expert programmers aren't able to check smart contracts for all possible issues.

CuriousCosmic 4y ago
That's what happens when you decide to write your smart contract language in what is basically javascript and your smart contracts are interpreted in a stack based VM. Doubly so when your contract execution is entirely determined by the order in which Tx happen to get accepted. It's actually sane when your contract is written in a non-turing-complete language with strong typing and the smart contract system has deterministic execution (i.e. you know the result when you submit the Tx and if the result would be different, the tx fails, preferably without charging you). I'm convinced that one of the main issues with most smart contracts is that they have such weak guarantees and the guarantees they do have are brittle and hidden behind complex, opaque proofs & constraint systems.
- bogomipz 4y ago
  >"That's what happens when you decide to write your smart contract language in what is basically javascript and your smart contracts are interpreted in a stack based VM." What was the language and why did running it in a stack based VM lead to this? I'm curious about the intersection of the language and the type of VM it ran in.
  - rwmj 4y ago
    Solidity. The Wikipedia article has some more information on the problems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidity#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidity#Criticism
spookthesunset 4y ago
The DAO “hack” was just a legitimate transfer of wealth from weak hands to smarter hands. Code is law. All “bugs” are law too. The only people who stole anything where the devs who reversed the ethereum blockchain…