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SafeDollar ‘stablecoin’ drops to $0 following DeFi exploit on Polygon

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Re: SafeDollar ‘stablecoin’ drops to $0 following DeFi exploit on Polygon

#121
post #69

Is there a website along the lines of istheshipstillstuck.com or arewewebyet.org but for "Is that coin / smart-contract dead already" ? Would be an useful reference in this ever-changing landscape, though I would pity the maintainers.

https://rekt.news/leaderboard/

That's amazing.

Re: SafeDollar ‘stablecoin’ drops to $0 following DeFi exploit on Polygon

#122

These incidents really illustrate the main flaw of smart contracts: a single bug in your code can lead to incredible losses. I simply don't think it's possible for human beings to write good enough software for smart contracts.

I don't see it as a flaw. It's all part of the game and the fact that things like this can happen just makes it more intriguing. Obviously only valid if you, like me, see it as a futuristic/cyberpunk financial experiment or art project.

Re: SafeDollar ‘stablecoin’ drops to $0 following DeFi exploit on Polygon

#123
post #93
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil is physical; it takes up space, and needs special protections to not pollute the container it's stored in. Digital goods, meanwhile, can just be transferred permanently "into the void" (i.e. to an account without an associated key.)

This implies there isn’t any contract obligations/fine print at the point of link to real world / real identity (exchange). In a hypothetical world, if coinbase made you sign things at signup and later demanded money for the upkeep of the network caused by your own transactions, I don’t think you can say no to that easily. Compare this to an HOA demanding a $100k payment from each condo owner in the Miami condo repai…

To be clear, we're talking about doing this in advance of something bad like that happening. Legal damages like that mostly attach to a sort of "snapshot state" — whoever held each thing at the time that the damages happened. So you can't get away from the debt by throwing away the condo. But if you already had thrown away the condo before the building collapsed, I don't think it'd be your responsibility.

(Compare/contrast: what if, instead of burning the deed before the collapse, you instead transferred the deed to another condo owner? Or, say, to the HOA itself? Both of those are just as simple in the crypto case as "throwing away" the token is. In the real world, transfers like that need to be witnessed under contract law. But in the crypto world, most tokens don't have sophisticated logic for recipient-agreement-gating transfers like that. You can send most kinds of tokens to people whether they want them or not.)

Re: SafeDollar ‘stablecoin’ drops to $0 following DeFi exploit on Polygon

#124
post #31

A point that most crypto heads miss is that the world does not run algorithmically. Legal contracts do not work like a software program and that characteristic is a feature not a bug. Not being able to reverse transactions that were part of an exploit is in infact a bug. Businesses need that tolerance for error. You need an oracle in your system. The oracle can maintain transparency of the attestations carried out if…

Much of the world literally does run algorithmically. Literally every day you trust your life, privacy and money to algorithms that make decisions without human intervention. The financial system trades trillions of dollars in automated systems that make split-second decisions in a way that precludes human supervision. Hedge funds and banks already trust algorithms that if broken could lose billions. The existence of…

Sure. But when you get pissed off at those algorithms, you can turn to the government to force the entities behind the algorithms to change the result. That's the whole point. It's not algorithmic in the end. Code is not law, and if it is, that's a bug, not a feature, to most people.

Re: SafeDollar ‘stablecoin’ drops to $0 following DeFi exploit on Polygon

#125
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That it incentivizes human trafficking and crime is pure hyperbole. Also turns out that the barrier to entry for crypto is lower in the 3rd world than you might think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvHN0MEBoZo

I believe the synagogue shooter was paid in Bitcoin. So not pure hyperbole. Edit: might have the details confused about above point, but the general thrust of things is pretty clear. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/19/neo-nazis-banked-on-bit...

Well in that case, nothing incentivizes more crime than USD.

Re: SafeDollar ‘stablecoin’ drops to $0 following DeFi exploit on Polygon

#126

These incidents really illustrate the main flaw of smart contracts: a single bug in your code can lead to incredible losses. I simply don't think it's possible for human beings to write good enough software for smart contracts.

On the other hand, it's fully auditable and transparent. Who knows if my bank's software is stealing a couple dollars from me every month due to "software bugs" as well. I'd need to setup a bot to check my balance every day to make sure.

Point is not whether my bank is malicious, but just that there's bugs everywhere and we'll have a few big "rug pulls" as this defi stuff is in prototype phase, but it will eventually grow mature. A flaw in Windows can lead to incredible losses too, but we've grown past that.

Re: SafeDollar ‘stablecoin’ drops to $0 following DeFi exploit on Polygon

#127
post #31

A point that most crypto heads miss is that the world does not run algorithmically. Legal contracts do not work like a software program and that characteristic is a feature not a bug. Not being able to reverse transactions that were part of an exploit is in infact a bug. Businesses need that tolerance for error. You need an oracle in your system. The oracle can maintain transparency of the attestations carried out if…

Much of the world literally does run algorithmically. Literally every day you trust your life, privacy and money to algorithms that make decisions without human intervention. The financial system trades trillions of dollars in automated systems that make split-second decisions in a way that precludes human supervision. Hedge funds and banks already trust algorithms that if broken could lose billions. The existence of…

But in many cases, there are ways to dispute and/or retrospectively fix or amend a transaction that is mis-classified.

In the exceptionally rare case that something is exploited within a cryptocurrency, there is no recourse for the victim.

Re: SafeDollar ‘stablecoin’ drops to $0 following DeFi exploit on Polygon

#128
post #35

There is no such thing as a stablecoin, it's a made up term to try to lend legitimacy to new crypto scams. And I say this as someone who just bought some Ethereum in the hopes of making a profit :)

If I create a USD-stablecoin with a supply of $1 backed by my $1 in US bonds, is that legit?

But nobody in crypto would willingly trade their crypto for something backed by fiat and therefore inflating. Right?

Re: SafeDollar ‘stablecoin’ drops to $0 following DeFi exploit on Polygon

#129
post #31

A point that most crypto heads miss is that the world does not run algorithmically. Legal contracts do not work like a software program and that characteristic is a feature not a bug. Not being able to reverse transactions that were part of an exploit is in infact a bug. Businesses need that tolerance for error. You need an oracle in your system. The oracle can maintain transparency of the attestations carried out if…

Much of the world literally does run algorithmically. Literally every day you trust your life, privacy and money to algorithms that make decisions without human intervention. The financial system trades trillions of dollars in automated systems that make split-second decisions in a way that precludes human supervision. Hedge funds and banks already trust algorithms that if broken could lose billions. The existence of…

> Much of the world literally does run algorithmically.

I think you're missing the parent's point, which is around the world running on legal contracts.

It's that legal disputes are settled non-algorithmically. If someone harms you through fraud or other illegal action, a judge can order a transaction reversed, etc.

None of this has anything to do with algorithmic trading, or using algorithms in finance generally for efficiency.

Re: SafeDollar ‘stablecoin’ drops to $0 following DeFi exploit on Polygon

#130
post #31

A point that most crypto heads miss is that the world does not run algorithmically. Legal contracts do not work like a software program and that characteristic is a feature not a bug. Not being able to reverse transactions that were part of an exploit is in infact a bug. Businesses need that tolerance for error. You need an oracle in your system. The oracle can maintain transparency of the attestations carried out if…

Much of the world literally does run algorithmically. Literally every day you trust your life, privacy and money to algorithms that make decisions without human intervention. The financial system trades trillions of dollars in automated systems that make split-second decisions in a way that precludes human supervision. Hedge funds and banks already trust algorithms that if broken could lose billions. The existence of…

It literally does not. The world runs advised by algorithms, but not governed by them. It's a fundamental difference. When algorithms in the real world create lose-lose outcomes, people override them, which is why when your credit card gets stolen you don't end up paying for stuff. You can bake that logic into a software contract, but if the design of your system is that the totality of software contracts are the final word, you have the same problem; you can't predict all the corner cases. It turns out a lot of the human beings that work for companies engaged in the financial system actually do stuff to solve problems.
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