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Show HN: Aragon – Everything you need to run your company on Ethereum

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Re: Show HN: Aragon – Everything you need to run your company on Ethereum

#91

Post by mode80 »

joosters wrote: post #72
pavel_lishin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you could have trusted third-party arbiters who would evaluate whether or not to release the funds on delivery of the good or service. But that brings on a whole new level of reputation-economy things you have to think about.

Then what's the point of doing the transaction with a digital contract in the first place? Weren't they meant to remove the need for trust or centralised arbitration? We already have well-established mechanisms to arbitrate these kind of disagreements, e.g. courts. Adding blockchains to the process just makes it more complicated for no gain.

A notable advantage of smart contracts is the flexibility to choose your own arbiter in advance -- a "chair expert" perhaps.

Re: Show HN: Aragon – Everything you need to run your company on Ethereum

#92

Post by vkou »

anigbrowl wrote: post #88
vkou wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incredibly easy to do, when 99.9% of the world relies on above-the-board banking to get shit done. My landlord doesn't accept rent payments in bitcoin, just like he doesn't accept payments in hooch, heroin, or pirate treasure - especially if it were illegal. At some point, your internet crime ring will have to procure goods from the rest of the world. If the government wanted to crack down on it, they very ea…

You're saying that there cannot possibly be large enough margins in anything to risk federal prison, which is self-evidently false. Your whole argument relies on declaring crypto currency as contraband, but contraband items are popular because they have inherent value to the consumers rather than simply being a medium of exchange. It's much easier to proscribe the possession of child porn, hand grenades, or heroin be…

> You're saying that there cannot possibly be large enough margins in anything to risk federal prison, which is self-evidently false.

No, I'm saying that outside of drugs, assassinations, and moonshine in countries following Sharia law, there aren't large enough margins in anything to risk federal prison.

> Your whole argument relies on declaring crypto currency as contraband, but contraband items are popular because they have inherent value to the consumers rather than simply being a medium of exchange.

Crypto currency is not contraband - but if you are using crypto currency to run a contraband business, you can be shut down by applying pressure on the parties you transact with. The easiest way to do this is by going after the exchanges.

For example, if the feds really wanted to take away all of Ross Ulbricht's money, they could make it illegal for a BTC exchange to accept in payment a bitcoin that, after a particular point in time, ever touched the Silk Road wallet. This would have made his coins de-facto unspendable - and the feds have the ability to do that, given that the exchanges interface with the USD economy.

> It's much easier to proscribe the possession of child porn, hand grenades, or heroin because it's easy to demonstrate the harm of allowing free traffic in such items. Prohibiting voluntary arrangements that don't inherently have first-order harm effects is more difficult.

That's correct. However, we are discussing using a blockchain to run a company that 'can't be shut down'. What exactly would you be selling, that makes it worth the trouble?

Re: Show HN: Aragon – Everything you need to run your company on Ethereum

#93

Post by monkmartinez »

DennisP wrote: post #78
seagreen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What language are the contracts written in? Do you have a specification of that language? EDIT: Nevermind, I see in an another comment that you're using Solidity. Thanks for the answer! Now I have a new question. What do you think about the claim that, "Solidity, while being an interesting proof of concept, is dangerously under-contained and very difficult to analyze statically." ( http://www.stephendiehl.com/posts/s…

Disclaimer: I write and audit Solidity for a living. The max-callstack issue isn't a problem anymore due to a change in the EVM. TheDAO was hit with a reentrant call. It's pretty easy to avoid that class of bugs by either (1) putting any external calls (including ether transfers) after all state changes, or (2) using address.send instead of address.call.value. Also, TheDAO was a very convoluted contract; better codin…

Are you paid in Eth or some other form of currency?

Re: Show HN: Aragon – Everything you need to run your company on Ethereum

#95

Post by fudged71 »

TD-Linux wrote: post #62
pavel_lishin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A crypto-contract can't evaluate the work you've delivered. If we enter into some arbitrary crypto-contract for me to build you a chair in exchange for 20 currencies, and I bring you a stump I hacked out of the woods, there's no underlying system that can tell me to fuck off and that I'm not getting paid.

You can actually evaluate work you've delivered, but only for a very small subset of "work" - basically, things that can be represented and evaluated entirely with software. Here's an example: https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/02/26/zero-knowledge-conting... Of course, this is entirely insufficient to do something like "put your corporation on the blockchain".

you can also pay someone for the task of validating work that has been delivered

Re: Show HN: Aragon – Everything you need to run your company on Ethereum

#96

Post by fudged71 »

primitivesuave wrote: post #45

Is there a way to pay for domain, DNS, and hosting costs with Ethereum? If so, one could build a wide-range of SaaS products that accept payment in Ethereum, and would be free of taxation and government regulation. While the SEC understandably exists to prevent defrauding of investors, this dashboard gives an investor perfect clarity into a company's financial strength and liabilities, and allows for an informed deci…

>It's even possible that some day we see a unicorn startup with a solo developer.

already possible. this allows you to create a ZERO person startup. you can be a contractor to a software algo.

Re: Show HN: Aragon – Everything you need to run your company on Ethereum

#97

Post by DennisP »

monkmartinez wrote: post #93
DennisP wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I write and audit Solidity for a living. The max-callstack issue isn't a problem anymore due to a change in the EVM. TheDAO was hit with a reentrant call. It's pretty easy to avoid that class of bugs by either (1) putting any external calls (including ether transfers) after all state changes, or (2) using address.send instead of address.call.value. Also, TheDAO was a very convoluted contract; better codin…

Are you paid in Eth or some other form of currency?

I'm paid a salary in fiat but the company I work for prefers payment in ETH, with Bitcoin its second choice, and our clients are generally happy with that.

Re: Show HN: Aragon – Everything you need to run your company on Ethereum

#98

Post by Analemma_ »

mode80 wrote: post #91
joosters wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what's the point of doing the transaction with a digital contract in the first place? Weren't they meant to remove the need for trust or centralised arbitration? We already have well-established mechanisms to arbitrate these kind of disagreements, e.g. courts. Adding blockchains to the process just makes it more complicated for no gain.

A notable advantage of smart contracts is the flexibility to choose your own arbiter in advance -- a "chair expert" perhaps.

You can already do that. Parties entering into an analog contract can agree to binding arbitration with a mutually-agreed-on arbiter (like a "chair expert"), instead of resolution in the courts. Again: what is being gained by smart contracts?

Re: Show HN: Aragon – Everything you need to run your company on Ethereum

#99

Post by tigershark »

mode80 wrote: post #91
joosters wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what's the point of doing the transaction with a digital contract in the first place? Weren't they meant to remove the need for trust or centralised arbitration? We already have well-established mechanisms to arbitrate these kind of disagreements, e.g. courts. Adding blockchains to the process just makes it more complicated for no gain.

A notable advantage of smart contracts is the flexibility to choose your own arbiter in advance -- a "chair expert" perhaps.

what is that is stopping you to do the same with normal contracts? You can get the chair experts with a normal contract and a blockchain one. arguably much, much, more easily with the former one.

Re: Show HN: Aragon – Everything you need to run your company on Ethereum

#100

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

I think Ethereum undermined their whole reason for existence when they did a fork in response to a valid contract because enough people did not like the results.

The fact that they called it a hack when it explicitly followed the Ethereum guidelines calls into doubt the sincerity of the people behind Ethereum.

http://www.coindesk.com/understanding-dao-hack-journalists/

If people want to actually have malleable contracts in the case of fraud, the courts provide a much more accountable process that has had centuries of fine tuning.

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