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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

#211

Post by breck »

rakhodorkovsky wrote: post #170
breck wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I simply don't think it's possible for human beings to write good enough software for smart contracts. I agree, but think it's fixable. I believe we have missed a natural platform in between binary notation and computer languages. I believe there is a 2-D dimensional binary. Simply using a grid (with an array of cells forming a line, and lines stacked on top of each other—a spreadsheet basically), we can drop *all*…

Can you elaborate on your last paragraph or point me somewhere?

I can't yet, sorry! My general research on Tree Languages, as well as a number of products I make, is all open source and public domain, but (sadly since research funding is not so advanced) I do have to be a bit pragmatic and make some money here and there. There might be some bits and pieces out there.

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

#212

Post by saalweachter »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #158
saalweachter wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every day the largest wallet is confiscated, divided into ten equal portions, and each piece is randomly awarded, lottery-style, with every transaction from the previous day serving as a lottery ticket.

I dunno, it's not about wealth concentration, be rich, that's fine. It's about whether your wealth was gathered by contributing useful work, or by parasitizing it. I imagine a proof of work system where there's a community work queue, and "mining" is completing tasks in the queue, borderlands-style (though hopefully without the violence). The mined tokens can be resolved to nft's which stay attached to the wallet of…

The difficulty is that once you move from things like my joke solution to earnest attempts like yours you start involving the real world in your model, and you end up with something that is more like a social solution than a technological one.

Once you start talking social solutions you start looking more like a business or a commune or a community and less like a technology. You don't just have algorithms and widgets and cryptographic hashes, you have people who are supposed to execute fuzzy decision making processes like authenticating that someone "did good work", and then you need validation protocols to check whether people are executing their human-algorithms correctly, and identity and spam systems to ensure that someone isn't running a bot-net that simulates a town of people pretending to do useful work...

Which in addition to making everything way more complicated, makes you step back and say, "Wait, what am I trying to accomplish here by creating a cryptocurrency which is a currency and not a speculation-vehicle again? And why am I trying to do it by creating a cryptocurrency again?"

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

#213

Post by ourcat »

lalaland1125 wrote: post #8

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.

Agreed. And it's the auditors who need to get better.

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

#214

Post by woodruffw »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #198
brianwawok wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing illegal things, mostly. If you are working a w2 job and paying taxes and paying your mortgage / auto loan... crypto doesn't really help you. Blackmail? Awesome. Buying illegal substances? Awesome. Gambling? You got it...

I’m making an assumption here that “crypto” means “crypto coin” and, perhaps further, any form of blockchain based, consensus maintained, public ledger. I don’t understand this “crypto is good for doing crime” narrative. When I’m doing crime, I strongly prefer there to be no record of the transaction. The closer I can get to an assurance there is no permanent record of the transaction, the safer I feel in deviating f…

> When I’m doing crime, I strongly prefer there to be no record of the transaction. The closer I can get to an assurance there is no permanent record of the transaction, the safer I feel in deviating from the law.

You're exactly right about this, which is why it's important to remember that a plurality (majority?) of those who speculate in cryptocurrencies don't seem to be especially aware of the whole "immutable, irrefutable public ledger" aspect.

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

#215

Post by roflc0ptic »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #198
brianwawok wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing illegal things, mostly. If you are working a w2 job and paying taxes and paying your mortgage / auto loan... crypto doesn't really help you. Blackmail? Awesome. Buying illegal substances? Awesome. Gambling? You got it...

I’m making an assumption here that “crypto” means “crypto coin” and, perhaps further, any form of blockchain based, consensus maintained, public ledger. I don’t understand this “crypto is good for doing crime” narrative. When I’m doing crime, I strongly prefer there to be no record of the transaction. The closer I can get to an assurance there is no permanent record of the transaction, the safer I feel in deviating f…

Those considerations notwithstanding, people are actually using crypto for criminal behavior. However great your arguments are against it, the reality is that it's happening.

Reasons it might be happening: You can say they're being shortsighted and taking on unnecessary risk, but then, people who make criminal livings tend to have a higher appetite for risk than e.g. I do.

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

#217

Post by holoduke »

dcolkitt wrote: post #185
tptacek wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fin…

You are aware that the vast majority of financial market trading is run by algorithms that govern not advise vast amounts of capital in an irreversible way. Sometime these algorithms break or are exploited. Often in spectacular disasters. Knight lost half a billion dollars in 30 seconds. Nobody reversed though, even though it was clear error. If you have a 401k I guarantee you that a significant amount of your money…

The world is more than just automated trading systems

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

#218

Post by jgalt212 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #185
tptacek wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fin…

You are aware that the vast majority of financial market trading is run by algorithms that govern not advise vast amounts of capital in an irreversible way. Sometime these algorithms break or are exploited. Often in spectacular disasters. Knight lost half a billion dollars in 30 seconds. Nobody reversed though, even though it was clear error. If you have a 401k I guarantee you that a significant amount of your money…

> Sometime these algorithms break or are exploited. Often in spectacular disasters. Knight lost half a billion dollars in 30 seconds. Nobody reversed though, even though it was clear error.

This actually blew my mind. The exchanges bust trades all the time. I don't why they didn't do it in this case.

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

#219

Post by rchaud »

Barrin92 wrote: post #92
omk wrote: 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…

I'm gonna be honest I don't know what the audience is for a product where you risk losing your entire life savings because you typed a wrong word in a smart contract rather than paying a middleman a fraction of a percent. It's almost like a sort of willful ignorance of division of labour and the concept of pooling risk.

> I'm gonna be honest I don't know what the audience is for a product where you risk losing your entire life savings because you typed a wrong word in a smart contract.

Some of crypto's loudest voices are young, college-aged people who've recently read Atlas Shrugged or Catcher in the Rye and are certain that they will never be the ones to lose their keys.

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