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I don't see how a "cryptocurrency based society" would actually work, but key management is not really the issue? You can give a copy of your key to a "bank" to

by rendx 4y ago

I don't see how a "cryptocurrency based society" would actually work, but key management is not really the issue? You can give a copy of your key to a "bank" to hold (or even let them generate and keep it for you), use shamir's secret sharing schemes to split it for redundancy, etc. In a society where cryptocurrency was of any actual relevance, services and tools would be widely available to assist, just like you need to interface with and learn about banks today. Plenty of people in the world are still unbanked and even from those that are I would assume plenty "prefer to store cash in their mattresses".

arcticbull 4y ago
Involving a third party in key management like a bank is entirely antithetical to the principles espoused in the white paper. Trustlessness is all or noting, and once you trust someone you are just doing what we do now but far less efficiently. A classically envisioned crypto society requires individual custody, or to borrow a turn of phrase “not your keys not your coins.” Most people are unbanked not because banks don’t exist for them but because they don’t have money to put into an account. In the US online banks like Ally or Schwab are way better for folks who are legitimately unbanked than a crypto wallet - esp one they are unlikely to properly custody. Postal banking is an approach that has been historically hugely successful too. Outside the US honestly I don’t know how folks wouldn’t be better served with for instance access to an account at circle.com vs USDC. People not having money is a social problem that deserves a meaningful social solution - not digital magic beans.
- junofan 4y ago
  You’re talking about Satoshi’s whitepaper? Because it talks about escrow services, etc. What principles are you talking about?
- rafaelero 4y ago
  Bitcoin's trustlessness is not affected by people choosing to store their keys with a centralized entity; although the same can't be said about PoS coins. It's all about giving people the option to choose their preferred method of interacting with it, each with its own pros and cons.
- throw0101c 4y ago
  > Trustlessness is all or noting, and once you trust someone you are just doing what we do now but far less efficiently. Not true at all, as the GP explicitly mentions Shamir's secret sharing: > Shamir's secret sharing (SSS) is an efficient secret sharing algorithm for distributing private information (the "secret") among a group so that the secret cannot be revealed unless a quorum of the group acts together to pool their knowledge. To achieve this, the secret is mathematically divided into parts (the "shares") from which the secret can be reassembled only when a sufficient number of shares are combined. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_secret_sharing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_secret_sharing So you can trust various persons / entities such that m out of n need to come together before the secret is revealed. And each person doesn't need to have just one share out of n: if you trust one person more that you can give them two (or more) shares out of the n.
enlyth 4y ago
> give a copy of your key to a "bank" to hold The irony, lol.

by rendx 4y ago

arcticbull 4y ago

Involving a third party in key management like a bank is entirely antithetical to the principles espoused in the white paper. Trustlessness is all or noting, and once you trust someone you are just doing what we do now but far less efficiently. A classically envisioned crypto society requires individual custody, or to borrow a turn of phrase “not your keys not your coins.” Most people are unbanked not because banks don’t exist for them but because they don’t have money to put into an account. In the US online banks like Ally or Schwab are way better for folks who are legitimately unbanked than a crypto wallet - esp one they are unlikely to properly custody. Postal banking is an approach that has been historically hugely successful too. Outside the US honestly I don’t know how folks wouldn’t be better served with for instance access to an account at circle.com vs USDC. People not having money is a social problem that deserves a meaningful social solution - not digital magic beans.

junofan 4y ago
You’re talking about Satoshi’s whitepaper? Because it talks about escrow services, etc. What principles are you talking about?
rafaelero 4y ago
Bitcoin's trustlessness is not affected by people choosing to store their keys with a centralized entity; although the same can't be said about PoS coins. It's all about giving people the option to choose their preferred method of interacting with it, each with its own pros and cons.
throw0101c 4y ago
> Trustlessness is all or noting, and once you trust someone you are just doing what we do now but far less efficiently. Not true at all, as the GP explicitly mentions Shamir's secret sharing: > Shamir's secret sharing (SSS) is an efficient secret sharing algorithm for distributing private information (the "secret") among a group so that the secret cannot be revealed unless a quorum of the group acts together to pool their knowledge. To achieve this, the secret is mathematically divided into parts (the "shares") from which the secret can be reassembled only when a sufficient number of shares are combined. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_secret_sharing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_secret_sharing So you can trust various persons / entities such that m out of n need to come together before the secret is revealed. And each person doesn't need to have just one share out of n: if you trust one person more that you can give them two (or more) shares out of the n.

enlyth 4y ago

> give a copy of your key to a "bank" to hold The irony, lol.