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This is extremely cool; I started putting together some of the same pieces after Stripe's blog post last week (https://stripe.com/blog/bitcoin-the-stripe-perspe

This is extremely cool; I started putting together some of the same pieces after Stripe's blog post last week (https://stripe.com/blog/bitcoin-the-stripe-perspective https://stripe.com/blog/bitcoin-the-stripe-perspective) and figured it was only a matter of time before something was launched. I'm glad it's open source and not for profit. I do have a few concerns, though. Some of them require a bit more digestion so I won't comment on those here, but one that I'm sure about: WTF is the reference client written in browser JS?? It doesn't make any sense, for all the same reasons as the last time someone dragged out that dead horse.

mappum 12y ago
Calling yourself not-for-profit doesn't make it true. I'm not so sure why they needed $3M for something that only needs to pay for a few developers, and why they need to be in control of the issuing of the currency (unlike Bitcoin).
- napoleond 12y ago
  Right, and that's where (most of) the rest of my concerns lie. It's not completely clear to me why they needed to implement a new currency and why it's being distributed the way it is. It's possible there's a good reason though; I just haven't had time to think about it enough yet.
  - mappum 12y ago
    The reason is strictly for fundraising. They have Naval Ravikant as an advisor and he is a proponent of using that model to fund a project. It's a viable model, but I don't think you can call yourself a nonprofit and use it.
  - joyce 12y ago
    I work at Stellar. re: the distribution method: mining obviously has many benefits, but it's still limited to people who are highly technical and/or who have money to spend. That eliminates most people in the world. We wanted to provide much broader access to digital currency to normal folks, and so stellars will be given away for free at the click of a button. Hope that helps clarify.
    - mappum 12y ago
      The fact that you're giving it to users isn't what raises questions, it's that you're first issuing it to yourself so that you control who gets it.
    - napoleond 12y ago
      But isn't Stellar intended for technical folk? Like, it's supposed to be a currency used between gateways, right? Where the gateways provide an interface to less technical people? I understand that peer-to-peer is also a possible use case, but realistically the people who don't know how to mine aren't going to care about transferring cryptocurrencies... that's why the gateways are valuable in the first place.
  - gdb 12y ago
    We chose to help fund Stellar because we were very impressed with their mission and their thoughtful approach to how to get cryptocurrency into the hands of as many people as possible. I think we all would have preferred a route that didn't require creating a new currency, but this was the best approach they could find to moving forward on their vision. Certainly the long-term hope is that the stellar will mostly help provide liquidity between other currencies, rather than become something used primarily as a first-class currency itself. The distribution strategy here is actually something that, as far as I know, has never been tried before. It's correspondingly very difficult to know exactly how it'll turn out. The underlying motivation is to distribute the stellar as fairly and as rapidly as possible, and this model (given lots of transparency and upfrontness) was the best they could think of. (If you come up with a better one, I'd certainly love to hear it — I'm gdb@stripe.com if you'd like to talk more.)
gdb 12y ago
The reference client being in-browser is a very deliberate choice: most users aren't going to download a client to play around with a new currency. It's certainly our hope that people will start building non-browser clients, and because everything is open-source and available it should be easy to do so. As soon as you're in-browser, you have a choice: do it server-side, which means you have access to people's funds (at least while they're logged in), or do it via client-side JS, in which case you don't. The choice there for Stellar ended up being pretty straightforward, though the simple implementation leads to some UX surprises such as: https://www.stellar.org/faq/#_Why_do_I_need_to_authenticate_with_Facebook_to_receive_my_stellars_ https://www.stellar.org/faq/#_Why_do_I_need_to_authenticate_....
- napoleond 12y ago
  > or do it via client-side JS, in which case you don't. Of course you do, it just takes a teeny bit more work--you swap the contents of crypto.js with the contents of malicious-crypto.js. The threat model is exactly the same (users either trust the server or they don't) but the browser crypto option adds a layer of (respectfully, because I know you're a very intelligent person who means well) bullshit.
  - gdb 12y ago
    Ah, so certainly malicious JS code could misbehave and gain access to your account. But this is true also for someone publishing a desktop client — in practice, people aren't going to check the code going into each release, any more than they're going to inspect the JS running on their page before entering the password. I think the question of where your password by design will go is very important. If it's transiting the server, suddenly there's a lot more surface area to worry about. Logfiles, databases, and the like suddenly can be called into scope, and an attacker might be able to steal credentials even without being able to substitute out code. In any case, the great thing about an open ecosystem is that, if you don't like the choices someone else has made, you are more than welcome to make your own implementation with choices you prefer!

mappum 12y ago

Calling yourself not-for-profit doesn't make it true. I'm not so sure why they needed $3M for something that only needs to pay for a few developers, and why they need to be in control of the issuing of the currency (unlike Bitcoin).

napoleond 12y ago
Right, and that's where (most of) the rest of my concerns lie. It's not completely clear to me why they needed to implement a new currency and why it's being distributed the way it is. It's possible there's a good reason though; I just haven't had time to think about it enough yet.
- mappum 12y ago
  The reason is strictly for fundraising. They have Naval Ravikant as an advisor and he is a proponent of using that model to fund a project. It's a viable model, but I don't think you can call yourself a nonprofit and use it.
- joyce 12y ago
  I work at Stellar. re: the distribution method: mining obviously has many benefits, but it's still limited to people who are highly technical and/or who have money to spend. That eliminates most people in the world. We wanted to provide much broader access to digital currency to normal folks, and so stellars will be given away for free at the click of a button. Hope that helps clarify.
  - mappum 12y ago
    The fact that you're giving it to users isn't what raises questions, it's that you're first issuing it to yourself so that you control who gets it.
  - napoleond 12y ago
    But isn't Stellar intended for technical folk? Like, it's supposed to be a currency used between gateways, right? Where the gateways provide an interface to less technical people? I understand that peer-to-peer is also a possible use case, but realistically the people who don't know how to mine aren't going to care about transferring cryptocurrencies... that's why the gateways are valuable in the first place.
- gdb 12y ago
  We chose to help fund Stellar because we were very impressed with their mission and their thoughtful approach to how to get cryptocurrency into the hands of as many people as possible. I think we all would have preferred a route that didn't require creating a new currency, but this was the best approach they could find to moving forward on their vision. Certainly the long-term hope is that the stellar will mostly help provide liquidity between other currencies, rather than become something used primarily as a first-class currency itself. The distribution strategy here is actually something that, as far as I know, has never been tried before. It's correspondingly very difficult to know exactly how it'll turn out. The underlying motivation is to distribute the stellar as fairly and as rapidly as possible, and this model (given lots of transparency and upfrontness) was the best they could think of. (If you come up with a better one, I'd certainly love to hear it — I'm gdb@stripe.com if you'd like to talk more.)

gdb 12y ago

The reference client being in-browser is a very deliberate choice: most users aren't going to download a client to play around with a new currency. It's certainly our hope that people will start building non-browser clients, and because everything is open-source and available it should be easy to do so. As soon as you're in-browser, you have a choice: do it server-side, which means you have access to people's funds (at least while they're logged in), or do it via client-side JS, in which case you don't. The choice there for Stellar ended up being pretty straightforward, though the simple implementation leads to some UX surprises such as: https://www.stellar.org/faq/#_Why_do_I_need_to_authenticate_with_Facebook_to_receive_my_stellars_ https://www.stellar.org/faq/#_Why_do_I_need_to_authenticate_....

napoleond 12y ago
> or do it via client-side JS, in which case you don't. Of course you do, it just takes a teeny bit more work--you swap the contents of crypto.js with the contents of malicious-crypto.js. The threat model is exactly the same (users either trust the server or they don't) but the browser crypto option adds a layer of (respectfully, because I know you're a very intelligent person who means well) bullshit.
- gdb 12y ago
  Ah, so certainly malicious JS code could misbehave and gain access to your account. But this is true also for someone publishing a desktop client — in practice, people aren't going to check the code going into each release, any more than they're going to inspect the JS running on their page before entering the password. I think the question of where your password by design will go is very important. If it's transiting the server, suddenly there's a lot more surface area to worry about. Logfiles, databases, and the like suddenly can be called into scope, and an attacker might be able to steal credentials even without being able to substitute out code. In any case, the great thing about an open ecosystem is that, if you don't like the choices someone else has made, you are more than welcome to make your own implementation with choices you prefer!