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Stellar Smart Contracts

stellar.org

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Re: Stellar Smart Contracts

#41

Post by decentralised »

nindwen wrote: post #36
koalala wrote: post #30

Stellar isn't decentralized. Just like Ripple, it uses Federated Byzantine Agreement, which means that nodes use a list of other nodes they trust. The fact that this scheme has nothing to do with the concept of a decentralized cryptocurrency, aside from the hype train, doesn't appear to have percolated into the collective mainstream or even geek consciousness yet.

> Stellar isn't decentralized. Just like Ripple, it uses Federated Byzantine Agreement, which means that nodes use a list of other nodes they trust. The fact that this scheme has nothing to do with the concept of a decentralized cryptocurrency There is no centralized authority, which means that the protocol in decentralized. It's just not decentralized in exactly the same way as something like Bitcoin. Some might cal…

There's only one development team behind the protocol and only one client implementation (afaik), which means that pressuring only two or three people is enough to guarantee that a backdoor is implemented or some form of transaction censorship happens.

edit: implementation / implemented

Re: Stellar Smart Contracts

#42

Post by jillesvangurp »

midhir wrote: post #8

One thing I've found impenetrable about Stellar is the use of the XDR data format. I've never encountered this before and it's been a painful step in starting to build on their platform. Are their any simple, introductory texts on it? A lot of stuff is from Stellar themselves. I'm sure there are good reasons for using it, the rest of the platform looks simple to understand and well designed.

It's a simple binary format similar to e.g. protocol buffers. You write an idl and then generate code for different languages. The reason they went for this is that is compact. This kind of matters because this stuff is actually stored in stellar in large quantities.

It's a pretty old ietf standard actually. I recently had a discussion on this on their slack channel making the point that the choice for this was a bit unfortunate given that this is a relatively obscure format with not a lot of developer ecosystem around it.

Because of this, the stellar guys are actually maintaining their own code generation tool for this because there's nothing else out there apparently. It's called xdrgen. It generates code for a few languages. If you want to understand xdr, that's a good place to start. You can find the idl in stellar core.

I actually have an open bug for the java code generation with them, it generates broken code currently.

Re: Stellar Smart Contracts

#43

Post by Klathmon »

hannasanarion wrote: post #31
vntok wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Bank transfers are reversible. In Europe, you can void a bank transfer up to _several_ days after it has occurred by complaining to your bank. If the bank agrees with you (fraudulent transfer, identity theft, etc), they can ask the receiver's bank to transfer the funds back to you. In France, you have 13 months by law to contest bank transactions after they have taken place. 2. Network fees will be infinitesimal c…

1. this is obviously a good thing. Thieves, fraudsters, and scammers exist. The ability for a trusted third party to roll back history is a feature. 2. How do you know this? Typical POS Credit card processing fees are 2-2.5%. Paypal is 3%. Bitcoin transaction fees can be as high as $50! Unless your typical transaction is 4 digit dollar amounts, credit card processing is cheaper.

>Bitcoin transaction fees can be as high as $50!

1. This isn't bitcoin

2. They were that high once, and have not been again

3. Point 2 really doesn't hold since they will be that high again if it ever gains mass appeal, however:

4. there are solutions to even that problem that are being tested and rolled out now called Lightning Network.

You can think it's all snakeoil or a scam or whatever, but building a little strawman to make it sound like it's pointless isn't helping anyone. There are plenty of things about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general that are still unsolved problems, but harping on the fees is silly at this point because it's the one that people are actively trying to solve in just about all cryptocurrencies, and I honestly believe that they have it figured out, and the road forward is just one of adoption and hardening.

Stellar uses a system that is pretty much designed to have low fees from the start, and Lightning Network is a pretty damn good way of scaling a blockchain system off the blockchain for the vast majority of transactions making fees a fraction of what they are even now.

For example, a single transaction in Stellar right now costs about $0.000002 USD. And that fee is expected to not change significantly, and unlike bitcoin is not variable but is fairly fixed, and will not go up with more activity.

Re: Stellar Smart Contracts

#44

Post by apo »

Both of the examples (2-Party Multisignature Escrow Account with Time Lock & Recovery, and Joint-Entity Crowdfunding) have been possible with Bitcoin for some time.

Re: Stellar Smart Contracts

#45

Post by djb_hackernews »

vntok wrote: post #12
Nursie wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? Really? As far as I'm aware the oracle problem still exists, the problems of having to get data onto the blockchain from external, trusted sources. In real-world contracts the problems don't arise over the simple execution of contract, they arise when intent is muddied or missed by words, when terms are unfair, overly onerous or legally unenforceable. Given this, there are very, very few situations in which sm…

It is, yes. Most transactions that occur daily across the whole world involve trivial amounts of money. If I want to sell you a 300€ dishwasher, for example, I can either require cash, ask for a check/bank transfer and pray it doesnt bounce, or involve a 3rd party whom i trust in which case I will have to forego a % fee for their escrow service, maybe 30€. With a smart contract, I can now be sure the buyer's funds ex…

> and we both release the funds before parting way.

Doesn't that require you to trust that they release the funds? Do smart contracts have a way to dispute an outcome?

Re: Stellar Smart Contracts

#46

Post by ericdykstra »

CPLX wrote: post #27
ericdykstra wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would I ever agree to let software ALONE enforce a contract? And if there is a human process to override the outcome of the contract, what advantage does it have over a "dumb contract". The cost of enforcing and collecting on a smart contract is much cheaper. Depending on the dollar amount and use case I can see the advantage.

Why? It seems like reviewing complex software code to make sure it’s well understood and no edge cases exist is a costly endeavor.

There may be standardized contracts for certain things, I don't know. If I'm wrong and there are no good use cases for smart contracts, they won't be used. It seems reasonable that they will find a use case, though.

Re: Stellar Smart Contracts

#47

Post by q3k »

leifg wrote: post #3

> As a reminder, smart contracts are created using code. Code can contain bugs or may not perform as intended. Be sure to analyze and agree upon all possible edge cases when coming up with the conditions and outcomes of the smart contract. Predicting all possible edge cases of a piece of software has been proven to be very hard in the past (there have been software bugs that literally killed people). Why would I ever…

> Predicting all possible edge cases of a piece of software has been proven to be very hard in the past (there have been software bugs that literally killed people).

This is what formal verification is for. But seemingly the current Smart Contract ecosystem doesn't care...

Re: Stellar Smart Contracts

#48

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

koalala wrote: post #30

Stellar isn't decentralized. Just like Ripple, it uses Federated Byzantine Agreement, which means that nodes use a list of other nodes they trust. The fact that this scheme has nothing to do with the concept of a decentralized cryptocurrency, aside from the hype train, doesn't appear to have percolated into the collective mainstream or even geek consciousness yet.

https://www.etherchain.org/charts/topMiners

Re: Stellar Smart Contracts

#49

Post by otabdeveloper1 »

beaconstudios wrote: post #13
vntok wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart contracts allow you to completely shortcut intermediaries and their fees in the case where everything goes right or can be checked objectively by an algorithm (ex price of a commodity on a particular platform at a particular time). With a multisig escrow account, if you and your counterpart both agree to transfer the funds, or both agree to unlock the funds, there is essentially no fee to give away to anyone el…

but the issue at hand is the case where the multisig contract has a bug and one party (or even a third party) can trigger a transfer of funds or render the funds inaccessible.

What if somebody hacks into your bank and steals your escrow account?

Presumably, in both cases the solution is the same -- law enforcement and a lawsuit.

The goal isn't some perfectly perfect decentralized system, the goal is something that doesn't have the monstrous overhead of something like, e.g., real estate deals today.

Re: Stellar Smart Contracts

#50

Post by keymone »

decentralised wrote: post #40
Suncho wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why Stellar probably doesn't count as a real "blockchain." It's also why Stellar is potentially a lot more useful than blockchain. You don't have to do proof of work, which is wasteful of resources by design. Note that the cryptocurrency people use the word "decentralized" differently from the rest of the world. They use it specifically to mean that the mechanism for determining consensus is perfectly distrib…

There are plenty of consensus protocols that don't waste energy but I think it's important to understand why PoW relies on an unproductive algorithm. Mining fulfils two roles: - identity management: To identify who is a trustworthy block producer in an anonymous and trustless network, mining introduces a cost to the block generation process and we use a game theory assumption that it serves as a barrier for attackers…

PoW isn't wasting anything. PoS is not cheaper that PoW. this myth just won't die..
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