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Did I just lose half a million dollars?

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Re: Did I just lose half a million dollars?

#11

Post by Cyberdog »

ab_testing wrote: post #7
ssiddharth wrote: post #5

In case you’re wondering what happened, from the thread: He sent ETH to the WETH contract, received WETH as expected. Then he wanted to do the reverse and sent WETH, but will not receive anything, because you're supposed to swap your WETH to ETH in exchanges like Uniswap, or call the "withdraw" function in the contract. For contracts that want to only work with ERC-20 tokens, you use WETH, which comes from a contract…

I think this is a problem with crypto that will forever prevent it from becoming mainstream. The average person understands the concept of money but understanding smart contracts is out of scope for a large part of the general population m

Agreed. It's so powerful but always so complex and confusing and there's just way too many footguns like this.

"Gas" is one of those concepts where I have to relearn what it is every time I read about it but never can retain it for very long. (See also Big O notation.)

Say what you will about the primitiveness of Bitcoin and other early coins but at least they're quite a bit more comprehensible.

Re: Did I just lose half a million dollars?

#14

Post by rosndo »

wruza wrote: post #9

Is this a motivation issue with crypto? Here is what I mean. Centralized systems work like a web of tunnels - you can’t send “nowhere” or make a huge mistake, but if your part of a tunnel gets shut for some reason, you’re locked. Decentralized ones are like an endless empty void with point-like islands of ownership in it. You can send anywhere, but make one mistake and it’s over. Now pepper this with our usual issues…

>Centralized systems work like a web of tunnels - you can’t send “nowhere” or make a huge mistake

You can totally make a 1 digit typo while making a bank transfer that results in all the money being lost.

Perhaps you’ll recover it after years of litigation, but that’s really not guaranteed.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/dec/07/i-lost-my-1930...

E: downvoted by upset bankers? :)

Re: Did I just lose half a million dollars?

#16

Post by josephcsible »

rosndo wrote: post #14
wruza wrote: post #9

Is this a motivation issue with crypto? Here is what I mean. Centralized systems work like a web of tunnels - you can’t send “nowhere” or make a huge mistake, but if your part of a tunnel gets shut for some reason, you’re locked. Decentralized ones are like an endless empty void with point-like islands of ownership in it. You can send anywhere, but make one mistake and it’s over. Now pepper this with our usual issues…

>Centralized systems work like a web of tunnels - you can’t send “nowhere” or make a huge mistake You can totally make a 1 digit typo while making a bank transfer that results in all the money being lost. Perhaps you’ll recover it after years of litigation, but that’s really not guaranteed. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/dec/07/i-lost-my-1930... E: downvoted by upset bankers? :)

But at least in that case, it's possible to get the money back. In this case, isn't the money absolutely, totally, 100% gone forever?

Re: Did I just lose half a million dollars?

#17

Post by rosndo »

josephcsible wrote: post #16
rosndo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Centralized systems work like a web of tunnels - you can’t send “nowhere” or make a huge mistake You can totally make a 1 digit typo while making a bank transfer that results in all the money being lost. Perhaps you’ll recover it after years of litigation, but that’s really not guaranteed. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/dec/07/i-lost-my-1930... E: downvoted by upset bankers? :)

But at least in that case, it's possible to get the money back. In this case, isn't the money absolutely, totally, 100% gone forever?

Sort of? You could appeal to the Ethereum developers, they could reasonably recover these funds without upsetting anyone too much by just refunding all WETH transactions sent to that contract. (This is the root of the spiritual disagreement between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic)

Of course you’re more likely to succeed when it’s real money and the other party has to worry about getting sued.

But even in the case of a bank transfer, the other party can abscond with your money and it’ll be extremely hard to recover since law enforcement probably won’t help you and (especially international) litigation costs can quickly render such an endeavor far too expensive.

Re: Did I just lose half a million dollars?

#18

Post by tommek4077 »

ab_testing wrote: post #7
ssiddharth wrote: post #5

In case you’re wondering what happened, from the thread: He sent ETH to the WETH contract, received WETH as expected. Then he wanted to do the reverse and sent WETH, but will not receive anything, because you're supposed to swap your WETH to ETH in exchanges like Uniswap, or call the "withdraw" function in the contract. For contracts that want to only work with ERC-20 tokens, you use WETH, which comes from a contract…

I think this is a problem with crypto that will forever prevent it from becoming mainstream. The average person understands the concept of money but understanding smart contracts is out of scope for a large part of the general population m

Just because you can do crazy stuff, doesn't mean you have to do it. Like the normal guy isn't trading interst rate derivates or stuff like that.

Also at least with european banking, if you wringly send money to another account, it is also gone forever. A lot of scams regarding old people build up on this. We do not need to buy google play store vouchers like the americans tonget scammed.

Re: Did I just lose half a million dollars?

#19

Post by withinboredom »

londons_explore wrote: post #12

No value was lost here... Since everyone can see this is unspendable, It's simply a donation to all other users in the form of burning coins and increasing the value of all other coins.

That’s like saying “oops I burned my house down. Everyone can see it’s unspendable but at least it increased my neighbors value of their house because there are less houses.”

Houses (and crypto) are worth actual cash. Burning them doesn’t increase the value of others in any meaningful way.

Re: Did I just lose half a million dollars?

#20

Post by phnofive »

tommek4077 wrote: post #18
ab_testing wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a problem with crypto that will forever prevent it from becoming mainstream. The average person understands the concept of money but understanding smart contracts is out of scope for a large part of the general population m

Just because you can do crazy stuff, doesn't mean you have to do it. Like the normal guy isn't trading interst rate derivates or stuff like that. Also at least with european banking, if you wringly send money to another account, it is also gone forever. A lot of scams regarding old people build up on this. We do not need to buy google play store vouchers like the americans tonget scammed.

This is gone like into an incinerator though, right? There's by design no way of getting the WETH or ETH back, but also no one controls them anymore?
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